


The Love Song of the North American Douchebag

by gyzym



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-22
Updated: 2013-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-15 17:58:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/852395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyzym/pseuds/gyzym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>♪ Doobie doobie do. ♪</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Love Song of the North American Douchebag

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Любовная песнь североамериканских мудаков](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1516391) by [allayonel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allayonel/pseuds/allayonel)



> Disclaimers/warnings/etc: this fic is about fictional versions of real people, and makes absolutely no claims of bearing any kind of accuracy about those people's lives, or even of wanting to be accurate. I hope that the real Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto are getting up to whatever the hell they feel like, unless they feel like creeping closer and closer to discovering this piece of fanfiction (which: please, god, no, not ever, worst nightmare, let's stop thinking about it). Warnings for casual ableist language, casual/joking mention of suicide, the use of the word "slut" in a sexual context, I may be forgetting some stuff and if I am, I apologize -- for reference, see the title of the fic and proceed accordingly :D 
> 
> Much deserved thanks: some fics take a village and man oh man was this one of them. To [whitelaws](http://whitelaws.tumblr.com/), who made the amazing graphic that sits at the top of this fic as well as the [gorgeous titlecard over on tumblr](http://gyzym.tumblr.com/post/53562623919/title-the-love-song-of-the-north-american); to [radiophile](http://radiophile.tumblr.com/), [endquestionmark](http://endquestionmark.tumblr.com/) and [numbtongue](http://numbtongue.tumblr.com/), who ALL stepped up to beta this fic with such speed and skill that I'm in awe; to [leighway](http://leighway.tumblr.com/), [Postcard](http://soyonscruels.tumblr.com/) and [FireEverything](http://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEverything), who encouraged me away from the knife-edge of writing neuroses: this fic is for you. Thank you _so much_ for helping me get here. And to [leupagus](http://archiveofourown.org/users/leupagus), who told me months ago that the only way to cure a Chris Pine obsession was to write a bunch of ridiculous fanfiction about him: it's gotten worse, honestly. I feel like maybe you tricked me, but I thank you wholeheartedly for starting this avalanche anyway. <3

  
[ ](http://whitelaws.tumblr.com/)

 

**wham bam thank you (press tour 2009)**

"You're oversimplifying me," Chris says, even as his eyes trace their way up the bared calves of one of the waitresses across the bar, even as he catches John catching him at it and grins, looks away. "I mean, don't get me wrong; I can be a pretty simple guy." 

"The sky is blue," Zach agrees. "The grass is green. Joan Rivers has had work done. Your penchant for stating the obvious grows wearisome." 

"As opposed to worrisome," Chris says, tilting his head, "like the angle at which you're holding your glass?" 

"Don't think I don't see you changing the subject," Zoe says, even as Zach rights his martini and, in a slightly sloshed departure from maturity that Chris appreciates from the depths of his soul, gives Chris a speaking finger behind her back. "This is dodging, Pine, and that's a coward's game. I mean, if you _want_ to be the kid who goes crying to his mommy because he can't own up to a simple fact, be my guest, but don't be surprised if it earns you mockery and a reputation you're ashamed of." 

"Are you suggesting his current reputation isn't worthy of shame?" Zach says, dripping disdain even as Simon sniggers, says, "Bit specific there, Saldana. Painful childhood memories you'd like to share with the class?" 

Zoe rolls and then narrows her eyes at Simon, and Chris tunes them all out for a minute, catches the eye of the girl at the bar. She's got legs for weeks and tits to match -- a little smaller than average, but in that way that works on a body that's otherwise long and lean, and they're perky as hell as a bonus. Dark hair, cut just long enough to sink his fingers into; pastel pink microskirt, probably uniform, that shows off the curve of her ass; spike heels with those clasp dealies that Chris is going to go ahead and bite off later, assuming she lets him. She's the kind of woman who wouldn't have looked at him twice five years ago, right down to the long fingers flashing "3-3-0" at him with a pointed and familiar intensity -- this, if Chris isn't very much mistaken, will prove to be the time she gets off work. He nods, winks at her, and grins outright when she winks back, utterly unselfconscious. God fucking bless the French. 

"I really think we win this round," John says as he cuffs Chris on the back of the head, pulling him abruptly back into their conversation. "I mean, you couldn't be proving our point more clearly if you were trying." 

" _Are_ you trying?" Karl wants to know. 

Zoe scoffs. "Is he ever?"

"Don't ask questions you don't what the answers to," Zach says, pulling an affected, exaggerated shudder. "Especially of him. You'll be so, so sorry." 

They're playing it quiet tonight, and it's good, easy; the drinks are flowing and the pressure's off, and Chris is having fun in a way he never quite does in the thick crush of a club. This little balcony they're sitting on, jutting out from the inside of the exclusive bar some friend of Zoe's steered them towards, has this view of Paris that makes Chris want to shout from the rooftops or be sick or something. It's overwhelming, grotesquely beautiful, and Chris is just drunk enough to admit to himself that that's how he feels about these people, too, how much he's going to miss these assholes when the press tour's done. Between John's relentless deadpan wit and Simon's sharpened mischief, Karl's grounded solidity, Zoe's honest warmth -- Chris would spend his whole career making movies with the company he's lately been keeping if he had that option, if those things came down to choice. 

And then, of course, there's Zach, every cut-glass edge of him, the way he is, right now, looking at Chris over the rim of his half-full martini (gin, two olives, light on the vermouth) as though hoping to eviscerate him with his eyes. Chris has never met anyone who uses sheer viciousness as a language the way Zach does, anyone who makes "unflinching, uncompromising dick" look so endearing; that's probably why Chris likes it so much, because it's new, different. Because it keeps him on his toes. Because some days it seems like everyone Chris knows is air-kisses and warm smiles and unkindnesses traded in the cover of darkness, and watching Zach apply his equal-opportunity superiority complex to everyone on earth except a dog he ensures lives better than most humans feels a little like finding water in a desert. 

Really fucking mean water, but still. 

Shit, Chris is drunk. He's drunk and he's going to get laid one way or the other and Paris is glittering around him like a scene from a life he never expected to live, so he figures: maybe honesty, just for tonight.

"I meant it about oversimplifying," Chris says, waving them all silent. "I'm not a sex addict -- but thanks for that, Simon -- and it's not that I'm, whatever, too emotionally empty to connect to people or whatever the fuck that face means, Zoe, Christ almighty. I just, I don't know. I like the way I do it. I like it to just be sex, because when it's not just sex it's -- well, it's _not just sex_. Sometimes you just want to feel good, you know? And make someone else feel good. It's about having fun, enjoying each other, and once I really care about someone sex is -- I mean, I have to kind of, I don't know, work myself up to it, I guess? It's a lot of effort, emotionally, and I don't see why I should abstain from, like I said, _enjoying myself_ , just because I'm not in a place to do the heavy lifting all the time." 

There's a long, heavy pause when he stops talking -- too honest, Chris thinks, glancing briefly down at his whiskey in betrayal -- and then Karl sighs, shakes his head, and drops a heavy hand on Chris's shoulder. 

"Sorry, mate," he says, "still think you're a pig, really. Heart's in the right place, I suppose, and of course we don't like you any less for it, but actions are louder than words and all that." 

"You wolf-whistled at someone yesterday," Zoe agrees. 

Chris glares at her. "It was Simon!" 

"Yes," Simon says, wiping at a fake tear, "and I felt deeply objectified." 

"This is bullshit," Chris says, sinking sullenly back into his chair as Eric returns from a suspiciously long trip to the bathroom. John starts laughing at him as Karl asks well-meaning but pointed questions heavy with outdated drug terminology, and it's easy enough for Chris to light a cigarette, distance himself from the conversation.

Next to him, Zach is conspicuously silent, swirling his gin in his glass with a pinched expression. Alcohol's inhibition-reducing properties almost always result in Chris finding himself clinically incapable of leaving well enough alone, so he jabs a finger against Zach's shoulder, creasing his ridiculous grey silk blazer. "I mean it, it's not fair. You wham-bam-thank-you just as many people as I do, I know you fuck like I fuck. Just because they have dicks--" 

"I don't fuck like you fuck," Zach says. It's harsh, even for him, and Chris thinks a little hazily that this is totally why he doesn't mix sex and feelings -- feelings on their own are puzzle enough. "I don't need a fucking run-up to emotional connection, Chris. I mean, Jesus, you're sad. I just don't like people very often, in general. If I only slept with people I enjoyed I'd never get laid at all." 

"That isn't even what I said!" Chris isn't sure why he's defensive, why this conversation sits so wrong in his chest -- just that he is, just that it does. He takes a long, rough drag on his cigarette, pointedly blows the smoke in Zach's face. "Anyway, you're the sad one, not me. I'm awesome at emotional connection, that's the whole problem, I get all attached and then I get -- whatever. You can't talk, you're like a freaky hermit person, what kind of argument is 'I'm not a pig because I just hate everyone and that's _better_?'" 

"You get _hurt_ ," Zach says, sneers, picking up a line of thought that Chris dropped on purpose; the dark side, Chris guesses, of finishing each other's sentences. "Right? That's why you never sleep with these women more than once, that's why you're all offended now -- you don't want people to hurt you. Your precious ego is too important to risk, which is the whole thing with you, really. Only somebody with an ego like yours could think they were, like, what, the only person on earth who has to deal with that? Come on." 

"You're angry," Chris realizes, angry himself. "Man, what is this -- I mean, fuck you, Zach, what the fuck is this about? What's it to you how I do it, anyway?" 

Zoe, John and Karl have left the table, drifted over to the bar; Eric's listening intently to some story Simon's telling, one that's probably a lot more fun than this hissed fight. Because it is, it's a _fight_ he and Zach are having, what the hell. They're drunk and they've lost track of it, the line between dicking around and genuine hostility that governs their relationship, and Chris can tell these are dangerous waters. He wonders if this is how it happens, if all the messy, complicated, under-the-surface bullshit between them finally comes to light just like this: a joking conversation that went off the rails, the two of them jabbing at weak spots until the ice cracks and they both get soaked in the reality that they're playing a zero-sum game. 

But instead Zach sighs like a capitulation and steals Chris's pack of Parliaments, just reaches into his breast pocket and yanks out like they belong to him, and when he raises his eyebrows over his cupped hands, Chris rolls his eyes but lights his smoke. He casts his gaze out over Zach's shoulder because it's easier than looking at him, picks that waitress out of the crowd and smiles at her. This is -- simple, uncomplicated, something he can be good at without any insane expectations hanging over his head. There's nothing wrong with it, nothing sad about it, just because his friends think it makes him some kind of asshole. Just because Zach, who Chris _knows_ picks up one-off twinks at the gym every couple of weeks, decided to fucking project tonight. 

"You were right, that's all," Zach says quietly, when Chris looks back to him. "Zoe was, too. You're not a pig, just a coward." 

Chris tells himself, that night and the next one, for weeks and weeks, that that'll stop eating at him eventually. He's not that surprised, though, when it doesn't. 

 

**happiness is a warm gun (spring 2013)**

It's the good kind of sex dream, all sharp cuts and blurred background, more sensory than visual, and shit, Chris is loving it. He's not sure who he's fucking, because it's just this amorphous mass of feeling, kind of like he's screwing everyone he's ever been with all at once; there's Dom's breasts under his palms and Olivia's thighs around his chest and that kid from Queer Literature sophomore year at Berkeley -- Jeremy? Jared? -- anyway, it's his dick in Chris's ass for sure, he'd recognize it anywhere. It should probably be overwhelming; even putting aside the physical impossibilities, Chris tried a foursome in real life one time, and it was mostly an exercise in wanting to lock himself in an empty room and breathe into a paper bag for a few hours. Three sets of junk in a bed, that's Chris's limit in reality. Anything more is too much pressure. 

But this isn't reality; this is a dream, a really fucking good dream of the type that Chris would never ever admit to having had out loud, and that's why he's pretty embarrassed when he wakes up mid-hump on his living room couch to the sound of his phone ringing. It's not like anyone's around to see him or anything, but still, _he's_ here, and it's fucking mortifying. The remembrance of waking up rutting into his couch to a dream about the disembodied consciousness of an assortment of exes is the kind of thing that'll follow him through the day and leave him wincing awkwardly away from his own reflection in mirrors. And, like, windows, in all probability. Fuck. 

"Fuck," says Chris, into, wow, ew, a puddle of drool that's amassed on a throw pillow he really hopes he hasn't ruined. He adds, "Hold on," to the still-ringing phone, and then remembers that it doesn't actually represent a listening consciousness until he answers it. Blearily -- his glasses are around here somewhere, shit, where'd he put them -- he casts around until his fingers find the vibrating edge of his phone. When he lifts it as far over his head as far his arms can reach, his vision gets it together just enough to approximate where the little red "answer" bar is, and he swipes it. 

"Hello?" Chris says. Or, at least, that's what he means to say; he happens to sits up at the same time, realizing belatedly that he fell asleep with _The Last Chronicle of Barset_ open across his chest when it falls heavily onto the knee he overextended at the gym yesterday. As a result of this, what he _actually_ says is, "Hell -- argh! Motherfucker!" 

The as-yet-unidentified person on the other end of the line starts laughing. "Oh my god, what are you doing? Please tell me you've managed to hurt yourself in answering a phone call. I've always known you were capable of it, and that'd make my night so much better." 

Chris, having found his glasses under his left foot by method of narrowly avoiding crushing them to bits, shoves them onto his face. He pulls the phone briefly away from his ear to check the display and confirm what he already knows: "Zach?" 

"No, you had it right the first time," Zach says. He's giggling, which is very strange. "This is 'Hellargh Motherfucker,' your closest Viking friend. Who's Zach?" 

"Man, it's like," Chris blinks towards the wall clock, winces, and slides two fingers up under his glasses to rub at his eyes. "Ugh, it's like four in the fucking morning. Why are you calling at four in the morning?" 

The laughter on the other end of the phone cuts off abruptly, and Zach, waspishly, says, "What, am I _interrupting_ something? Did you get your poor publicist to set you up with some starlet again, are you neglecting her to talk to me? That's rude, Chris." 

"What you're interrupting is my sleep cycle," Chris says, but mildly enough. He cracks his back, and then his neck for good measure, as he takes in the carnage around him -- a mostly-empty bottle of wine, one glass, a pizza box, an open pack of Parliaments. He vaguely remembers deciding he'd earned a day off of self-discipline; someday he'll learn that doing that only leads to a carb crash. "And unless falling asleep on Anthony Trollope counts as rudeness, I'm pretty sure I'm innocent on all counts. Seriously, why are you calling? "

Zach groans. " _God_. You're so boring." 

"Hey," Chris says, finally waking up enough to identify the weirdness here, not to mention the drag in Zach's voice. "Are you drunk?" 

"What's it to you if I am?" 

"Are you seriously drunk-dialing me?" Chris isn't sure if he wants to laugh or, like, reach into the phone and strangle Zach to death for this. "What are we, twenty-five?" 

"Ew," Zach says, sniffing. "You were still drunk dialing people at twenty-five? Don't tell people that, that's pathetic. That makes you sound pathetic." 

The sheer gall of that has Chris actually pulling the phone away from his ear again, this time for the sole purpose of making an outraged face at it, before he classifies that, too, as pathetic. To Zach, he says, "Are you for real right now, Pot? When you, at this very moment, are drunk-dialing this particular kettle at the ripe old age of 36? I sincerely hope you're turning that finger around and pointing it right at yourself, because you deserve that and worse." 

"There's a clause." Zach sighs, a maudlin, overdone thing that has Chris rolling his eyes until he adds, "You know, for being dumped." 

Chris has a photoshoot for _Men's Health_ magazine in five hours; his back hurts, and he's got pillow-creases on his face and the kind of uneasy, heartburn-y stomach that always appears when he consumes pizza and red wine after 6 PM. What he should do is hang up the phone, pop an antacid, drink two bottles of water and go try for a REM cycle in his own fucking bed. That's the right choice. The responsible choice. 

Shame, the way he's already reaching for his shoes as he says "Well, shit, man. Where are you?" 

\--

Forty-five minutes later, Chris is walking down the Santa Monica pier with two Starbucks cups in his hands, a grey hoodie pulled so low it's almost covering his eyes, and his glasses doing that thing they do sometimes in the early morning, with the fogging and the making him feel like he's fifteen fucking years old all over again. It's really not a good thing, to go into a Zach interaction -- a Zachteraction, the part of his brain that can't help itself supplies -- already feeling fifteen. Chris, through long experience, has learned that the best defense to the self-esteem onslaught that Zachary simply can't help but be is a good offense. If Chris hangs out with him on a really great ego day, he goes home feeling like a regular person. If he hangs out with him when he's already feeling low, he ends up leaving the encounter feeling like a total shithead more often than not. 

The weird thing about Chris's relationship with Zach is that, even on the days Zach makes him feel a little bit like he's a Hot Pocket that somebody garnished with _herbes de Provence_ and is trying to pass off as haute cuisine, he still wants to spend time with the guy. Instead of seeking out people who make him feel like less of a Hot Pocket, Chris finds himself wanting to improve what he's made of. It's… unusual, for him, not to mention a flawed metaphor. 

On the plus side, he's definitely got the upper hand today, seeing as Zach has been dumped and chosen easily the most cliched place in the entire city to go mope about it. Even Chris's fogged-up glasses can't out-fifteen-year-old Zach right now, a thought that immediately makes Chris feel like a shithead -- which, there it is, the whole Zach problem right there.

Chris stops in the middle of the pier, straightens his back, and takes a deep breath. "Get a hold of yourself, Pine, for fuck's sake," he says under his breath. "You're spiraling, this is pathetic, this _isn't about you_." 

The empty pier, of course, says nothing, but after a second a pelican caws judgmentally from a strut a few feet away. If Chris's hands weren't full of coffee, he'd give the stupid bird the middle finger; as it is, he has to content himself with glaring at it, and maybe making a small hissing noise of which he is immediately ashamed, before he walks on. 

He's gotten to the end of the pier, is starting to think maybe this is all some kind of prank, when he spots Zach; he's sitting on the little outcropping past the weird Route 66 gift shop, feet dangling down towards the water in blatant violation of about sixteen different signs. His arms are folded over the wooden guardrail, shoulders hunched, and Noah's lying next to him like, well, a guard dog. If it weren't pitch-fucking-dark outside it'd make a really good photo, which makes Chris regret not bringing his camera, which forces Chris to remind himself, again, that this isn't about him.

"Hey," Chris calls, before he can get even more in his head, Jesus, this is why he doesn't do mornings, "you'd better be Zach and not some random vagabond. I don't get up at 4 a.m. for just anyone." 

Zach jumps a little before he half-turns and stares at Chris like Chris is some kind of hallucination; he looks from the coffee in Chris's hand to Chris's face and back again, as though this will, eventually, yield him some answers. Noah, hilariously, springs to his feet and bounds over to Chris before coming to a quivering sort of stop about an inch away, looking back to Zach in what's clearly a plea for permission. After a second, he whines softly and butts his head gently against Chris's leg, obviously of the opinion that this is a subtle move that will both win him some affection and escape Zach's potential judgement. 

Some days, Chris worries a little about how much he identifies with Noah. It's probably unhealthy on some level. 

"You… brought coffee," Zach says after a second. He looks shitty, five o'clock shadowed and rumpled in a way that's too clearly unintentional to be fashionable, hair chunked and greasy the way it gets sometimes when he runs his fingers through it too much; Chris knows it's not the coffee that's surprised him. Only Zach would drunk-dial Chris at 4 a.m., tell Chris where he was when Chris asked, agree not to go anywhere until Chris arrived, and then assume Chris wouldn't show. There's a lack of faith in humanity in general -- and Chris in particular -- necessary for that train of thought that mere mortals simply can't reach without considerable effort. 

"Of course I brought coffee," Chris says, instead of any of this. "Advil, too. Can you take your cup already so I can pet your dog? He's killing me with the little headbutts, I feel like Stalin." 

Zach snorts as he takes his cup. "Let me guess: you're sacrificing his ear-skritches for the good of the collective?" 

"In Soviet Russia, ear skritch you," Chris says. He crouches as Zach snorts again, puts his own coffee cup to the side, digs his fingers into Noah's fur as Noah wriggles with happiness. "Right, Noah? Do ears skritch you, do they, do they?" 

"Don't baby-talk him," Zach says, "he's not a child." 

"He's also not a person," Chris points out, as Noah -- the most unsettlingly well-behaved quadruped in the greater Los Angeles area -- visibly fights the urge to tackle him to the ground and lick every inch of his face. "I mean, I know he eats like one -- " 

"Oh, stop." 

"Plus," Chris continues, ignoring this, "you totally baby-talk him all the time, you just don't want me to do it. You're jealous of what we have -- right, Noah? Isn't he jealous? Isn't he?" 

"Please," Zach says, so out-and-out dismissive that Chris can't help but raise an eyebrow in challenge. Zach sighs, rolls his eyes, and then says, "Noah." Literally; that's all he says. It's all flat and emotionless, too, no tone changes, no hand-clapping, and still, somehow, Noah jerks away from Chris like he's on fire and throws himself ecstatically across Zach's stupid, smug lap.

"It really is frightening." Chris sighs and picks up his coffee, crouch-walking over to Zach before he plops himself down next to him. "How well-trained he is, I mean. You're so not someone I'd peg as a dog-whisperer." 

"A complaint you've registered before," Zach says. He leans forward and resettles himself on the guardrail, resting his cheek against his forearm so he can sort of sideways-sip his latte and look out at the ocean. Chris doesn't think he's drunk anymore -- this is the fuzzy aftermath stage, where he's almost, but not quite, himself. 

After a second, Zach sighs in something that's either resignation or satisfaction; then he says, "This is whole milk, isn't it," which means it was, in fact, both. 

Chris shrugs, not that Zach's looking. "I figured you'd probably earned it." Zach hums, noncommittal, so Chris sips at his own latte and says, "You, uh, wanna tell me what happened?" 

"Not really." 

"Okay," Chris says. He flounders for a second, because this isn't actually a thing people normally ask him to do; he's not typically the post-breakup support friend. He's more the friend you call when you need a plus-one to a wedding, or if you feel like getting drunk and talking about Nabokov until the wee hours of the morning, or if you think you have an STD and want to describe your symptoms to someone (Chris hasn't ever actually had an STD, but he's just kind of accepted that he gets that call a lot). Rides to the airport, yes. Therapy referrals, yes. But emotional support is not actually on his list of strong suits -- he can be a good listener, if the circumstances call for it, but he doesn't actually know what the steps are to make someone talk. Or how to tell if they even want to.

There's also the fact that basically every relationship Chris has ever had has ended either with him heartbroken and bawling on the floor of a public bathroom or unceremoniously disappearing on the partner in question until they eventually got the hint, so. To say there are some gaps in his knowledge on this subject might be kind of an understatement. 

"Uh," Chris tries, when the silence gets oppressive, "so what _do_ you wanna --" 

"I mean, it's not like I'm surprised or anything," Zach says, cutting him off. "Things have been -- we're not -- I mean it's not, you know, like when people think things are totally fine and then they just get blindsided, because I hate that, I hate even acting characters like that, you know? The idiots. Because they're idiots, it's -- you have to be some kind of stupid, to let that happen to you. How hard is it, really? To read someone you're supposed to know better than anyone, isn't that the whole, you know, _point_? Of a relationship?" He turns to look at Chris, eyes wide and a little crazed, without artifice in this way that kind of makes Chris want to throw himself in the ocean in panic; Zach doesn't do this, doesn't come out from behind his walls this way, and Chris isn't sure he trusts himself with Zach's honesty. "Like, without the knowing each other, the emotion, whatever you want to call it -- without it, it's just fucking on a schedule, isn't it? So you have to be an idiot not to pick up on it, if the other person's so unhappy they're planning to cut and run. Right?"

"Uh," Chris says. "I don't -- " 

"Can't even commit to an answer, typical," Zach snaps, turning away so harshly that it hurts a little, that Chris has to bury his fingers in Noah's fur again to dull the sting. Then, very quietly, Zach says, "I'm an idiot." 

"Zach, Jesus," Chris says, "don't. No you're not." 

Zach sighs heavily, sets his coffee down, folds both his arms over the guardrail and balances his chin on interlocked hands. "I don't know why I called you," he says, in this weird, almost sing-song tone. "You're such a fucking sugar-coater, it's disgusting. I don't need that, you know. It's over, he's wanted it to be over for ages, whatever. We've been playing city-tag, you know? I'm here and he's in New York, I'm in New York and he's here; I'm stupid. It's fine. It's a fact, just because you say it's not -- and like, you know what else, Chris, I'm not even that upset about it, really." 

"Sure," Chris says, totally unwilling to call Zach on this obvious lie. "I mean, of course you're not."

"You're embarrassing yourself," Zach says, snorting. "You fucking act for a living, you're not even bad at it; you could stand to work on your white lying. _Obviously_ I'm upset about it, okay, I know. I'm sitting here drinking my sad coffee with my sad hangover and the whole, you know, sad thing going on." He snorts again, shaking his head. "I just mean… I'm more upset about not knowing than I am about finding out, I guess? I was never going to be that person, and now I am, and that's shit, it's total shit. And the _dog_ , god, Jon says Skunk's just as much his as mine and -- fuck, see, _that's_ choking me up, that's great. He tells me he's leaving me and I'm cool as a fucking cucumber, but the thought of losing the _dog_ , that's too much. What kind of person does that make me?" 

"A friend to the ASPCA?" Chris says, without thinking about it. He feels like the world's biggest shithead with such immediacy that he actually has a physical reaction to it, jerking away from the guardrail as though maybe if he really tries he can get the hell away from himself, and he could swear he hears the pelican from earlier cawing at him again. "Oh fuck, Zach, _sorry_ , I wasn't trying to like, belittle -- I mean -- " 

But then, to his surprise, Zach starts laughing, this startled, whooping kind of sound that reminds Chris of the early days of their friendship, back when Zach was surprised every time Chris proved himself to be more than a slab of meat. He claps Chris on the back with shaking shoulders and chokes out, "God, you are _such an asshole_ , it's like an art," and so Chris starts laughing too, because, yeah, he really is, but it seems to actually be making Zach feel better, what the fuck.

"You called me," Chris says, when they've quieted down a little. "So this is your own fault; you know so many people who would've been better to join you in your -- what is this, exactly? A deleted scene from the latest Zach Braff movie?"

"Don't you dare invoke the other Zachs," Zach warns. "There can only be one, you know this." 

"Yes, Zachary," Chris says, more or less on autopilot, as he cranes his neck to look around for something that's only just occurred to him: "How'd you even get down here? How did _I_ get down here? Isn't there security or something to keep dumb teenagers from trying to climb the fucking Ferris wheel?" 

"Yeah, there was a guy, he," Zach starts to laugh again. "He said he loved my work on _Heroes_ , and asked me to sign one of his little fake-out parking tickets. Oh, and he told me I could stay here so long as I didn't like, melt his brain? It was kind of surreal." 

Chris blinks at him. "Are you sure this wasn't some sort of drunk hallucination? Be honest: did you eat the worm out of the bottom of the tequila?"

"He called me 'Sylar,' when he walked away," Zach says, shaking his head. "I couldn't make that up. And speaking of made-up shit, the tequila worm thing is a myth, Chris. Everyone knows that."

"Said like someone who totally ate the worm." 

"You're ridiculous," Zach says. Then, after a second, "I do kind of feel like I did that, though. I mean, if hallucinogenic tequila worms were a real thing, I bet this is what the aftermath of eating one would feel like." 

Wordlessly, Chris digs around in the pocket of his jeans and pulls out the Advil he shoved in there on his way out the door. Zach makes a disgusted face at the loose pills, and Chris raises both eyebrows rather than actually saying "Beggars can't be choosers," or "Don't be a gigantic baby, you gigantic baby." The message seems to get across, though, because Zach rolls his eyes like he's the most put-upon person on the planet but snatches the pills out of Chris's hand anyway, swallows them dry. 

They sit in silence for what feels like a long time, Chris sipping his coffee with his legs folded underneath him, Zach once again resting atop the guardrail. After a few minutes in the quiet, Noah wriggles backwards with slow, purposeful focus until he's filling the space between Zach and Chris, one furry side pressed up against Zach's thigh and the other against Chris's. Chris, amused, reaches down to pet him and sort of forgets to stop, absently scratching him behind the ears and pulling the flat of his palm in long strokes down his back. Faint bands of pink are starting to lighten the sky when, eventually, his hand bumps against Zach's on the crown of Noah's head; Chris starts a little at the contact, but Zach doesn't, just tenses and then relaxes his shoulders so quickly that Chris wonders if he imagined him doing it at all. 

"I really am sorry," Chris says quietly. 

"Yeah," Zach sighs, "yeah, me too." He sits up after a second, cracks his neck, gives Chris an unconvincing smile. "Thanks." 

"Sure," Chris says. "So, uh, what now? Do you… I don't know, need somewhere to crash for a few days or something? My guest bedroom's always open." 

"Ugh," Zach says, pulling a face. "I like to think I'm a few steps away from rock bottom, don't you?" 

Ah, there it is. The crippling wave of self-doubt; Chris knew it was coming. It always does, with Zach, although it's usually hard to know what's going to bring it about. "Well, I don't know! You've got the dog with you, I wasn't sure if you were like -- " 

"Wandering the streets with naught but the clothes on my back?" Zach says, arching an incredulous eyebrow. "No, Christopher. I didn't sign over my life savings to Jon -- or the mortgage on my house, for that matter. I'm not _homeless_ , it's just… awkward, I guess, right now. It'll be fine. I'll probably just move out to my place in New York until he figures something out. We leave for the press tour in a few weeks anyway, and it's not like I don't have shit to get done out there. I'll have to be there more-or-less full time once _Glass Menagerie_ rehearsals start up, so. It'll be easier to just get it ready now." 

"Oh," Chris says; he's pretty sure at least half of that's bullshit, but he can't quite figure out what or why. Also, he finds himself oddly sad to think of Zach being in New York after the press tour, which is really weird, since it's not like that'll change anything about their relationship. For one thing, Chris'll find himself in New York for work at least a couple of times while Zach's there, the same way Zach'll inevitably find himself in LA. For another thing, they don't actually hang out that often -- they text, and grab lunch sometimes, and every once in awhile Zach throws a party or something, but it's not like they see each other every day, or even every month. They did, for a while after the first _Trek_ movie, have a weekly coffee date, but it kind of petered out after a while, especially after Zach started dating Jon; Chris always got the impression that Jon didn't like him. 

But for obvious reasons Chris isn't going to bring that up now, or be totally fucking weird and tell Zach he should go on the press tour and then make the executive decision _not_ to move to New York for the duration of the Broadway play he's starring in. So he just says, "I'll have to come out and see you in that." 

"You'd fucking better," Zach says. "I watched you rub that dead cat all over yourself twice in support of your theater career, and you never even trained anywhere. If you miss my first Broadway run our friendship is officially dead." 

Chris laughs. "Even though I'm your breakup call?" 

"Don't remind me," Zach says, shuddering, but when he thinks Chris isn't looking, he smiles. 

The sun peeks out from over the horizon a few moments later, one overly-bright ember reflecting off the ocean with the so-casually-picturesque-it's-almost-hackneyed flair only LA can really manage. Chris switches his glasses for the prescription Wayfarer sunglasses he grabbed from his glove compartment just in case. When Zach groans and lifts a hand to shield his eyes from the light, Chris grins at his own foresight and hands over the matching, nonprescription pair he wears with contacts.

Zach blinks down at the sunglasses for a long moment before he slides them on. Then, sounding honestly surprised, he says, "That was so -- you're so -- seriously, Chris, what kind of douchebag carries a backup pair of Raybans with his Raybans?" 

"This kind," Chris says, pleased with himself. "You love me, don't deny it." 

The weird thing is, Zach doesn't. 

 

**nothing heavier than compassion (press tour 2013)**

The stairwell door makes a horrible shrieking sound when it's opened; this is a fact Chris learned in coming out onto the roof half an hour ago, but remembers all too well when he hears it again. Not wanting to deal with whoever it might be -- a couple that's slipped away from the party for a little heavy petting, a fellow member of the A Man Has Limits, Okay, You Can't Parade Me Around Like A Trained Monkey And Not Expect Me To Seek Escape Club, somebody looking for sex who Chris will feel obligated to try and satisfy because he's just in that place tonight -- he looks around for a hiding spot. There's a big metal air vent a few feet away, the kind that sticks up from the roof and curves over itself a little, that's casting a shadow just big enough for Chris to hide beneath without sacrificing his reading light. He pushes himself up into a crouch, shoves his book in his mouth to better use his hands for balance, and starts stealthily making his way over to the vent. 

"Well," Zach says, "this isn't quite as weird as I was expecting, but I've got to admit, it's close." 

"Fuck!" Chris yelps against the pages of his book, as he loses his balance in surprise and falls backwards. He spits out the book and says it again, sharper, " _Fuck_ ," when he feels himself scrape raw the palm he reaches out to catch himself. "Scare me to fucking death, why don't you? Jesus, I think I skinned my whole fucking hand." 

"God, don't whine," Zach says. "Fifty bucks says you're not even bleeding." 

Chris opens his mouth, thinks about it, shuts it again, and scowls. "No bet." 

"I win," Zach sing-songs, even though, what the hell, no he _doesn't_. Chris said no bet, that means they're not actually playing anything, so there's nothing for Zach _to_ win.

"What are you doing up here?" Chris says rather than explaining that, because he knows better than to bother. Zach is a freakishly competitive bastard, even when -- hell, especially when -- there aren't any actual stakes. "Other than judging me, I mean."

Zach shrugs. "I noticed you were missing, and everyone else worth talking to had found conversation amongst people I find loathsome. Seeking you out was the lesser of many evils." 

Despite himself, Chris grins a little; for one thing, Zach has this hilarious tendency to get more articulate when he's tipsy, like the first thing alcohol knocks out for him is whatever filter keeps him sounding like a marginally regular person the rest of the time. For another thing: "Dear god, Zachary, that was almost a compliment." 

"I know," Zach says, "I felt the accompanying piece of my soul wither and die," and he quirks two fingers at Chris in the universal gesture for _come here_. Chris arranges his face into what he hopes is an expression pathetic enough to get him out of going back inside and Zach rolls his eyes. "Oh, honestly -- I'm not your warden, Pine. I don't care if you go back to the party or not, but if you think I'm going to sit on this filthy floor in a Zegna when there's a perfectly serviceable bench around the corner, you are insane." 

"There's a bench?" Chris says, suddenly feeling incredibly stupid about the thirty minutes he's spent trying not to notice his ass going slowly numb. 

"I literally don't know how you survive on your own." Zach closes his eyes with a pained expression, shakes his head, but then he holds out his hand to Chris and raises his eyebrows impatiently. "Come _on_ , Chris." 

Chris forgets about this, kind of, sometimes. Not the warmth of Zach's hand against his when he grasps it, of course, or even the specific feel of it, the way rough banjo calluses contrast the otherwise soft skin. They touch often enough, after all; not excessively, but a little more, maybe, than Chris touches other people. A pat on the back here or an arm grab there, someone's arm around someone's shoulder, the occasional hug -- it's fine, well within the bounds of normalcy. Chris mostly doesn't think about it, because why would he, really? He knows what Zach's hands feel like, it doesn't have to be anything, mean anything at all. 

The _strength_ of him, though: that, Chris forgets. It's stupid, honestly, because Zach's always been bigger than Chris -- he's taller, broader across the shoulders, wider across chest and waist, and Chris knows that objectively. Hell, if someone asked which of them was more likely to win in a fight, Chris would say Zach. Quite aside from their physical proportions, Zach's working with a level of ire, intensity, and commitment to victory that Chris can't ever hope to reach. He's got it. He's aware. 

It's just that Chris is rarely -- really, almost never -- in the position of _physically_ realizing he's weaker than someone else these days. Zach might have a few inches on him, but Chris is still six feet tall, and Zach might be broader than him, but Chris isn't exactly a wilting fucking flower. He runs every day, works out six times a week, has the kind of musculature that lands him leading roles in Hollywood action franchises. He's almost always the most cut person in the room, and even when he's not, even when he's at an afterparty with the fucking Lakers or doing a film opposite Tom "You Will Compare Your Body To Mine And Find Yourself Wanting For The Rest Of Your Acting Career" Hardy, it's not like it's anything but an intellectual exercise. It's not like he _feels_ the difference, just observes it, makes a note.

But Zach's pulling him up from the ground one-handed, the full weight of him, and it's a little gesture, a nothing thing, except that Chris is trained to understand the physicality behind this. Acting requires a working knowledge of other people's bodies, the ability to know when someone is straining themselves, to gauge how much raw power they're working with or how much they've got left in the tank, and Zach could pick Chris up and carry him away without breaking a sweat. Chris _knows_ it, can feel it in the force behind this quick, nothing lift, and for all it's over in the time it takes Chris to draw breath, it leaves his mouth dry. It leaves the warmth of Zach's hand echoing on Chris's palm in a distant, pins-and-needles sort of tingle when Zach pulls away. 

"Uh," Chris says, tongue suddenly thick in his mouth, "thanks." 

Zach eyeballs him for a second, visibly suspicious, but then seems to shrug off whatever it was that pinged his radar in the first place. He snatches the book out of Chris's unresisting hand, flips the folded-back paperback cover closed, and starts laughing as he settles himself down on the bench. 

" _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_?" Zach says, thumbing through it as Chris sits down next to him. "You're a parody of yourself. Berkeley called and they asked you to tone it down." 

There aren't a lot of topics on which Chris feels entirely, unimpeachably comfortable in his own skin, but his love of this book is one of them. Maybe it's an obvious choice, or an overdone one, or whatever; he doesn't give a fuck. When words on a page are capable of doing to you what that book does to him, trying to hide it is stupid and selfish and wrong. "Don't even try to act like you've never read it." 

Zach snorts. "Of course I've read it, but I don't carry it around with me to reread when I run away from -- holy shit, are there notes in this? Seriously? _Seriously_? Is this actually your copy of this from, what, All English Majors Are Exactly The Same 204?" 

"Oh, yeah, said the theater kid," Chris says easily. "Yes, if you have to know, that book has been with me since my Philosophical Literature seminar in 2002." 

"Everything about you horrifies me," Zach says. "And call me a theater queen if you're going to call me anything, the title makes the man and all that." 

Chris laughs, shaking his head. "Whatever you say, Zach." 

He's expecting Zach to continue with the mockery, as is his way, but instead he starts thumbing through the book more slowly, actually looking at what's on the pages. Chris shrugs and lights a cigarette; then, when Zach lifts two fingers without looking up from the book, Chris hands over that cigarette and lights another for himself. 

"One point to me," Chris says after maybe five minutes, when both of their smokes are almost down to filter. It, to his utter lack of surprise, is the right thing to say to get Zach's attention; he looks up immediately, eyes wild with the clear need to know what point he lost and how. Chris grins. "You're totally into it. We're," and he deepens his voice here, imitating this hilarious conversation they had with a fan about Kirk and Spock on the first press tour, "two sides of the same coin." 

"I don't know what you're talking about," Zach says. Then he pauses, grins, and amends, "No, okay, I mean I do about the coin thing, that's still funny -- but I'm not reading the book, Chris. I'm reading your notes. They're _very_ enlightening. I feel like I really understand this text on a whole new level." 

"What," Chris starts, and then, belatedly, actually remembers the _content_ of some of those notations. He's so used to them being there that he doesn't see them when he rereads anymore, but most of them were made the first time he read the novel, when he was like twenty years old and stoned out of his mind. "Oh, god-- "

"Kundera writes, 'When the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave,' and you,” Zach stops, cackles, holds the book out of Chris's reach when Chris grabs for it, " _you_ added the insightful, 'DEEP! So true.' With three underlines, which I think really drives home how deep and true it is, don't you?" 

"You know what, I don't need this, you can just give that right back," Chris says. He lunges -- admittedly, kind of half-assedly -- for the book, and Zach dodges away from him easily, sharp glee written all over his face. "Christ. The amount of pleasure you get out of tearing me a new one is a little sick, don't you think?" 

"Eh," Zach says, visibly unconcerned. He flips to a different page, lets out a whoop, says, "I see you've circled, highlighted, _and_ underlined, 'There is no perfection only life,' and I must say, Christopher, I've got questions. Was one of these options simply not enough? Did you feel the need to mark that very clearly for fear you might not be able to remember six words in order? Oh my god, wait, wait. Don't tell me -- you were going to get it tattooed somewhere ridiculous. Like, around your bicep or something. On the back of your neck." 

"God," Chris says, "you're such a fucking dick. It's like, unreal what a dick you are, I really have no idea why I keep hanging out with you."

And the thing is, he means it, he _absolutely_ means it, but he's laughing on it, through it, hard enough that it distorts the words. He's laughing at _himself_ , because yeah, this is mean, Zach is _so mean_ , but it's funny, too. Zach's always funny, even though Chris knows he'll wake up in the dead of night six months from now and his whole body will thrum with mortification at the thought this conversation ever happened -- it doesn't matter, because it feels good now, and Chris doesn't laugh at himself enough, anyway. He tries to, but he takes himself so seriously most of the time that it causes tension headaches, probably covered the down payment on his shrink's vacation home; Zach's like the walking, breathing antithesis of the inside of Chris's head in that respect. Zach probably wouldn't take Chris seriously if Chris was on fire (though he _would_ spit on him, Chris is almost certain).

There's probably something to that, to the fact that if Zach's mean like this, thinks of Chris like this, but sticks around anyway, Chris can probably let some of his shit go. That's probably a big part of the appeal, the reason he keeps seeking out Zach's company even though half the time it's razor-edged and brutal. Chris has known that for years now, but he doesn't like to think about it -- the practical application of that is a lot easier thought than done, and, also, he really doesn't ever want Zach to find out. 

"You _did_ want to get this tattooed, didn't you," Zach says, eyes widening. "But you were too much of a pussy about the needle thing, oh my god, that's totally it, isn't it?"

"You're so off-base, it's hilarious," Chris lies, because, while he didn't want to get that specific phrase or anything, it _is_ true that he's no-showed three different tattoo appointments in his life. And, also, that one of them was less than five years ago. It's not exactly something he's proud of. 

"Whatever," Zach says. He closes the book and curves the well-worn cover in his hand until it forms a loose tube, which he then, of course, uses to swat Chris lightly on the arm. "What are you doing out here with your hipster literature choices anyway?" 

"That book is a fucking masterpiece, okay," Chris says, "and you're one to talk about hipster, man, you Instagrammed a photo of the horizon the other day." 

"I'll take it back if you've ever read another Kundera novel." When Chris shifts in his seat, Zach smirks in triumph. "Knew it. And I still want to know why you're skulking around out here like the saddest little movie star there ever was." 

Chris sighs, tips his head back to stare up at the stars. It always unsettles him when he travels like this, looking up every other night to a completely unfamiliar sky; it makes him feel like he doesn't know where he is. Logically he's aware that this is Berlin, that it'll be London next and then back to the States, New York and LA, territory he knows, but emotionally he feels like this press tour is the equivalent of that stupid book, the one about the guy walking back from the war or whatever the fuck, just dragging on and on. Maybe he's just getting too old for this, or maybe it's all the tension -- JJ leaving, all the pressure for this film to do as well as the first one did, the fact that Chris doesn't actually think it's that _good_. Maybe it's the fact that Chris keeps catching this raw, heartbroken expression on Zach's face when he thinks no one's looking and it's eating at him that he's got no idea what the fuck to do about that, if anything _can_ be done about that, if he's dropping the ball. 

"What's that book," Chris says, still staring at the sky, "about the guy and the walking?" 

Zach clicks his tongue in thought. " _A Walk in The Woods_?" 

"No, the really fucking boring one." 

"You didn't think _A Walk in The Woods_ was boring?" Zach says. "Because you're so alone in that, I felt like I was watching everything I used to like about Bill Bryson slowly disintegrate in a vat of acid." 

"You should quit acting and go into the book reviewing business." Chris says, dropping his gaze from the stars to offer Zach a sliver of a smile. "Authors would shit themselves in terror, it'd be hilarious. But no, Zachary, the novel. The really fucking boring _novel_ about -- "

"Oh, _Cold Mountain_ ," Zach says. He pulls a face. "Yeah, terrible book; so?" 

Chris shrugs. "I don't know. I was thinking about it, I kind of thought -- never mind, actually. Now that I think about it, it's a stupid comparison." He rubs a hand through his hair, throws Zach another smile, one he can _feel_ is unconvincing. Which means he probably means it to be unconvincing, since technically he knows he's capable of faking emotion, it's like his whole job, so why is he -- fuck. "Look, you know me. I was just taking a break. I'll go back in soon, forget it." 

"You are really fucking in your own head right now, aren't you," Zach says. 

It's not even a question, because Zach is in many ways the most honest person Chris knows. It's a double-edged sword in the sense that one side of the sword is the cutthroat bastard this quality makes Zach almost all of the time, but the other side of it is stuff like this -- the way he's no bullshit when Chris's overwhelming instinct is _to_ bullshit. Right now, if he was sitting next to anyone else, Chris would deny what Zach just said, would play it off; the thing is, though, he knows Zach won't buy it, and won't have the decency to pretend to buy it, either. That's actually one of the most decent things about Zach, when push comes to shove. 

So Chris just nods, and Zach cocks his head thoughtfully, says, "Huh. Well, fuck everyone else, then. Let's stay out here all night with your shameful collegiate relic." 

"Look, I can deal, it's… whatever," Chris says, "you don't have to, like -- "

"Chris?" 

"Yeah?" 

Zach doesn't actually need to say the words _Shut the fuck up_ , because he's more than capable of communicating it with a simple expression; Chris, who knows that particular face well, shuts his mouth. And just like that, this huge knot in the center of his chest, the one that's been growing for days, the one that made him sneak the book into Alice's bag in the first place so he'd have a distraction -- it unwinds, not all the way but enough to breathe around, like he just needed Zach's permission or something. Which is weird. And more than a little fucked. And great, right now, because the truth is Chris kind of values feeling better over more or less everything else, so he can worry about how he's weird and fucked another time. 

"Wanna play 'What's the weirdest thing we can trick Benedict into running up here for us?'" Zach says after a few minutes, and yeah, Chris really does. 

 

**liquor in the front (october 2013)**

"No, no, you're not listening," Chris says, holding his phone between his shoulder and his ear as he waits for his coffee order to come up, "And it's really kind of sad that I can't say Michael Douglas's name without your immediately making the conversation about Catherine Zeta-Jones, could you be less gay for like seven seconds?" 

"I can't actually think of a less gay topic than Catherine Zeta-Jones." Zach sounds more contemplative than anything else; meanwhile, a guy in a pink spandex tank top with 'Bitch' written on it in sparkles is giving Chris a death glare from the back of the line. Chris isn't sure how one communicates _Oh, no, I'm not a homophobe, just a deeply closeted bisexual talking to a male friend who once got drunk and told me in detail his favorite things about sucking cock,_ but he completely forgets to worry about it when Zach adds, "I mean, for one thing, she's got absolutely magnificent breasts." 

Chris rolls his eyes towards the ceiling. "See, _even that_ , you're a hopeless case. If you're going to go there, then she doesn't have 'magnificent breasts,' she's got a 'killer rack.' Or 'great tits.' This isn't complicated." 

"It's so funny how you think I care even a little bit about playing it straight," Zach says, amused. Pink Tank Top, on the other hand, still looks furious, as do about ten different women in the store. Hopefully Chris gets out of here without being killed, that'd really put a damper on the day. 

"I _don't_ think you care," Chris starts, and then decides it's better to shelve this conversation for a time when his surroundings are less hostile. "Look, that wasn't even the point, can we please -- " 

"Right, right, Michael Douglas, right," Zach says, "hold on two seconds, okay? Someone's beeping in."

"Don't fucking put me on hold, Zach, I have to be back on set in -- aaaand he's gone," Chris says to the silence on the other end of the phone. To the barista who's pushing his cup of coffee across the bar, he adds, "Some people, right?" 

"Pig," she snaps. So, you know. That's nice. 

On the theory that it's move quickly or find out whether the phrase 'If looks could kill,' has any kind of real-life basis, Chris gets the hell out of the coffeeshop as fast as he can. He's already on the street when the silence on the other end of the phone cuts over to the static of live conversation again. 

"Sorry," Zach says, "what'd I miss?" 

"The extreme likelihood that someone spat in my coffee, mostly," Chris says, sipping it anyway. "I hate when you do that."

"What," Zach says, "spit in your coffee? I've never done that. Thought about it once or twice, but never actually pulled the trigger." 

"Thanks _so_ much. I meant when you just put me on hold without -- "

"Hold on," Zach says, and the line goes dead again. Chris doesn't even time to spit out a curse before Zach's back, though, and laughing. "Sorry, just fucking with you. In my defense, you set me up perfectly." 

"Zach, I swear to god," Chris snaps, but he doesn't actually follow it up with anything, because -- what? What's he going to threaten Zach with, exactly? _I swear to god I'll continue to like you because if years of your unmitigated abuse hasn't pushed me to the breaking point nothing will,_ is pretty much the only thing he could offer up with any credibility, and as threats go, it's seriously lacking. 

Zach remains silent in what Chris knows, just fucking _knows_ , is what he considers the right amount of time to let that realization really sink in. Then, in soothing tones Chris imagines he perfected by using them on Noah and Skunk, he says, "Okay, okay. Drink your spittle coffee, Captain Blood Sugar -- "

" _Seriously_?" 

"Or I can just hang up," Zach says. "And whatever you have to say about Michael Douglas can wait for another time." 

Chris honestly considers letting him hang up for all of four seconds. Then he gets to a crosswalk, sees the glowing orange _Stop_ hand on the other side of the street, and sighs, because: yeah. The sign's right. There's really no point in kidding himself. 

"So I went to this fundraiser thing last night," Chris says, "because, whatever, like ten people told me they'd be there -- "

"Your agent threatened you and you're between novels," Zach interprets. 

He is, maddeningly, correct on both counts, so Chris says, " _Whatever_ , okay, the point is that I'm there and he's there -- Michael Douglas, I mean -- and he's a total fucking legend, you know? I watched his movies when I was little, I idolized him for years -- "

"What, really?" 

"Would you just," Chris says, frustrated, "look, the point is that I wanted to go over and talk to him but I couldn't, because every time I looked at him all I could think about was the cunnilingus thing from a few months ago! Like, he'd open his mouth and I'd think about him eating some girl out, and he is so not someone I've ever wanted to think about sexually. It was _horrible_."

There is a long pause. Then, severely, Zach says, "The man had cancer, Chris." 

"I know!" Chris says, throwing his free hand in the air. The crosswalk has opened, which is great, because people are, once again, looking at him as though he is the devil incarnate. He lowers his voice and hisses, "I'm not _proud_ of it, okay, I feel like a fucking terrible person. He's a film legend and a great man, and honestly, talking about it like he did, it was a great thing to do for awareness. I know! I really do! Like, I hope if I ever get the opportunity to spread awareness about a potential health risk by telling the press some detail of my sex life, I have the balls to do it. But I'm telling you, I'm standing at this party and it just takes me over. It was all I could do not to say 'muff-diving' to everyone I talked to!" 

Zach, because he is a horrible person who Chris should never have called, starts laughing. "Oh my god. Chris." 

"Shut up!" Chris can feel himself blushing, which is just fucking ridiculous, he doesn't even know why he made this call. "Ugh, forget it. Never mind." 

"Chris," Zach repeats, still laughing, "please tell me you don't actually require reassurance that you're not, I don't know, going to hell or whatever for thinking about Michael Douglas's quality beaver time. Because that would be the saddest thing you've ever done, and the competition is so steep in that category that I'm a little worried for you."

" _Quality beaver time_?" 

"What? It's not my area of expertise," Zach says, offhand. "You wanna call me up and tell me you saw that Liberace movie and you can't stop thinking about Michael Douglas fellating Matt Damon -- "

"Zach, don't you fucking dare make this worse -- " 

"I'd say 'Yeah, me too,' and offer you some helpful advice," Zach continues, laughing again when Chris groans. "But as I do my best not to think about the Land Down Under -- " 

"Where are you getting these names," Chris says faintly. "Oh, god, did _Karl_ say that, did you pick that up from fucking _Karl_? "

"I can't help you," Zach finishes gleefully. "So sorry." 

“No you’re not,” Chris says. He reaches the lot behind the soundstage -- three more hours, probably, and then he’ll be done with this fucking endless last-minute Jack Ryan ADR -- and waves at Jackie the sound tech, who’s outside having a smoke. “You’re never sorry, you’re the worst person I know. You’re probably sitting in your evil villain lair right now, laughing maniacally to yourself.” 

“This apartment is not a _lair_.” 

“Because your lair is on a remote tropical island somewhere?” 

“Obviously,” Zach says. “If I’m going to take over the world, I might as well do it from somewhere comfortable.” 

Chris laughs, leans against the wall next to Jackie. “Right, well, try to hold off on world domination a little longer, okay? I have shit to get done today.” 

“And everything is, of course, all about you.” Zach’s eyeroll isn’t audible, but his sigh is, and the expression is implied.

“What, you think you’re the only megalomaniac making a career in Hollywood?” Chris says, and finds himself grinning helplessly when it startles a laugh out of Zach. “Okay, gotta go. Break a leg tonight.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Zach says, “good luck in dubbing purgatory,” and then the line goes dead for the third and final time. 

“That’s nice,” Jackie says as Chris pockets the phone. When Chris frowns at her, confused, she shrugs. “I can’t make anything work when I’m working, really. Drives my girlfriend nuts.” 

“Uh, right,” Chris says. He doesn’t quite follow, but hey, maybe she just wants to be friends -- Chris has done that, opted in to the _Randomly share personal details_ school of getting closer to someone. He likes Jackie, so he offers, “I mean, yeah, I get that. I’m the same way. Single-minded.” 

Jackie narrows her eyes, looks at him for a second like she doesn’t understand what the hell he’s talking about, but then she shrugs again, tosses her cigarette, turns towards the door. “Sure, okay. Let’s get back in there, this shit’s not going to record itself.” 

It doesn’t occur to Chris until much later -- until the next week, when he and John are out for drinks and John steps away to take a call from his wife -- what Jackie might have meant. That she might have thought that Chris’s conversation with Zach was with a significant other. That she might have noticed something in his facial expression, his tone of voice, and just assumed.

Which is ridiculous. Of course it is. But the thought of it sits uneasily on his shoulders, especially when Chris notices that he has to fight his first instinct: to text Zach about it. 

 

**poker (november 2013)**

Chris buys Zach a latte on their way to the theatre; Zach mocks him for a California boy when he curses at the bitter wind heralding New York winter, so Chris takes the cup back, holds its warmth between his chilled palms. They end up trading it back and forth as they walk, Zach plucking it out of Chris's hands whenever he gets thirsty and then passing it back over without even looking, just holding it out in the air like he's Caesar or Cleopatra or some other towering diva of the original school -- Chris can't bring himself to follow through on the simile. He just keeps taking the coffee, not drinking it, heat-leeching and reminding himself: that Zach gets this way when he's nervous; that walking ten blocks in forty-five degree weather has never actually killed a man; to buy gloves. 

He's still relieved to step inside the theatre, where the heat's blowing hard enough to offset the chill of the day. It won't thaw Zach, the thick layer of ice that's been cracking over him since he picked Chris up at the airport this morning, but Chris can live with that. Being friends with Zach is an exercise in frostbite, and, anyway, Chris asked for this, booking a flight that landed on a performance day. Zach'll warm up once the show is done, or after a few drinks, or tomorrow -- or not at all, because Chris has entertained that thought, actually. That Zach never gets warmer, and Chris just grows used to the cold. 

This isn't the sort of thing Chris ever says, of course. It, like any number of Chris's darker thoughts, doesn't merit verbalizing. 

Zach gives him the tour and it's perfunctory, hurried. His voice is threaded through with this well-meaning brand of impatience, like he's glad Chris is here but can't help but wish that he wasn't, that he could just settle into his normal routine. Chris gets that, or almost does, and so doesn't say any of the things he's thinking: that Zach looks distressingly _correct_ , standing with one hand fiddling with a curtain rope, the other whipping distractedly through his hair as he rushes through a breakdown of the staging he says he needs Chris to know. That Chris is so stupid proud of him, of the glowing reviews people keep forwarding to him because they know that he cares, that he almost couldn't bring himself to come. That moments like this always leave Chris a little afraid of Zach, his raw talent and his towering intellect and the way people automatically turn towards him when he walks into a room; they always leave Chris wondering if one of these days Zach is going to turn his head and forget Chris is next to him, if Chris would even blame him if he did.

It's better that he doesn't say them, honestly. Zach would laugh at him, probably for dozens of years, and Chris doesn't think he could bear that, really. The trick, he's discovered, with Zach is to work on your poker face: it's fine if he's got an idea of what you're holding close to your chest, so long as he doesn't know how fucking much you care about it. 

Zach goes to makeup. Chris takes his seat -- third row, dead center -- and spends the next forty-five minutes watching the crowd filter in. It's strange, the way Zach's absence alerts Chris to how fever-hot his thoughts have been running. Strange, how it's only in distancing himself from Zach's chill that Chris can remind himself to be cool. 

The curtain rises. The curtain falls. The curtain rises. The curtain falls. Chris forgets about walking ten blocks in 45 degree weather and how Zach gets when he's nervous, to buy gloves, to be cool. Chris forgets about lattes and being laughed at and being a little afraid of Zach, just a little, today and all the time. Chris forgets himself. 

And then it's over and he's standing and he's clapping and Zach's bowing with this expression on his face that Chris has only seen once before, on a pier in the dim light of almost-day. He's cracked wide open in the wake of having become someone else so completely that Chris can't help but be awed by it, as an actor, as a _person_ , and so he doesn't scrub the tear-tracks from his cheeks or smooth out the creases in his pants where his fist was clutching tightly for the entire second act. Zach will probably laugh at him but that's fine, it's fine, because Zach has earned this, deserves to know this, even if all it'll do is prove to him that Chris is an embarrassing person. Zach _should_ know, whether he wants to or not. 

It's the first time in his life Chris has ever felt selfish and altruistic at once. It sits uncomfortably in his chest, like saying something awkward at a dinner party, like forgetting a friend's birthday, but he doesn't let it stop him from talking his way backstage. 

Zach's standing at the mirror in his dressing room when Chris gets there, stripped down to an undershirt and wiping off his makeup with a cotton ball. He's still cracked apart when he turns to Chris, Chris can see it, Chris can _feel_ it, and when he uses his wide-open eyes to look Chris up and down, Chris doesn't back away from it. He watches that gaze linger on the creases in his pants and the tear-tracks on his cheeks and then he lets his voice shatter when he says, "Zach, it was -- that was -- you were _incandescent_ ," and he knows it's too much but whatever, _whatever_ , just this time. 

He's not expecting the way Zach crosses the room and folds into him, gripping too hard, his sweat-sticky cheek warm against Chris's own. "Who says that," Zach hisses in his ear, "who fucking says things like that, Chris, I swear to god," and Chris doesn't know; doesn't answer; doesn't let go. 

 

**ain't never lived a year better spent (december 2013)**

Zach's deconstructing the concept of a pluot when Chris's phone rings. "I really don't understand how this can be beyond you," he's saying, simply raising his voice to be heard over the tinny, canned version of _For Whom The Bell Tolls_ that serves as Chris's ringtone, "the name is literally what it is. A plum and and apricot, okay, it's -- are you actually waving me silent right now? Seriously, Chris? Your breaking point is fucking _pluot_?" 

Chris says, "Hello," into the phone instead of responding to that, and then answers Zach's furious glare with, "For fuck's sake, man, it's my sister. Stop looking at me like I killed your dogs and go fondle the oranges or something."

Zach doesn't stop glaring, but he does actually push the cart in the general direction of the oranges. Chris isn't sure what it says about their relationship that he considers this a victory. Probably, if he's going to be honest about it, something very sad.

"Ah," Kathy says, with the specific tone and emphasis that, in Pine, translates to, _I'm already laughing at you._ "Bad time? I can call back." 

"Nah, just grocery shopping," Chris says. He picks up a package of candied pecans and holds them over his head to wave at Zach, who looks at them as though considering it from the other end of the aisle. "And getting yelled at because I don't know the difference between a nectarine and a fucking pluot, like it even matters." 

Zach, having apparently heard that, narrows his eyes. He vindictively shakes his head at the pecans, clearly nixing them, as Kathy says, "What the hell is a pluot?" 

"See, that's what _I_ said, it's two against one now." Chris walks to the end of the aisle, pecans still in hand. He drops them in the cart despite Zach's raised eyebrow, tells him, "Kath doesn't know what a pluot is either, you're totally full of shit." 

"Give me the phone," Zach says imperiously, and, well. It's not like Kathy doesn't _know_ Zach or anything. Chris hands it over. 

He wanders the produce section more or less aimlessly for the next few minutes, picking up an orange here, an avocado there, a whole bag of apples when Zach -- the total fucking freak -- actually snaps his fingers and points. He can hear Zach's side of the conversation and the fact that he's using his de-clawed voice, the one he puts on when he cares that someone doesn't think of him as an asshole. It's nice, Chris thinks, that Zach cares about what Kath thinks of him, even if what's actually coming out of his mouth is mostly "Mmmhmm," and "God, I really couldn't tell you," and laughter that's almost definitely at Chris's expense. 

Chris is in too good a mood to worry about it tonight; he and Zach spent almost the entire day doing something Chris would call 'jamming out' if either one of them were a better musician, and it was still fun even though they're not. His fingers are sore and he feels good, loose, like he spent a Saturday the way Saturdays were intended to be spent. Even this is nice, the chance to do something as simple as fucking _shopping_ without being mobbed by the paps. Chris isn't sure if it's the fact that he's expected to be in LA or if it's just too cold here for the bastards to come out of their caves, but whatever it is, the peace is nice. Hell, maybe there's some magical anonymizing quality about what he's wearing, his glasses and untrimmed beard, a wool scarf he bought on the street because he was fucking freezing, and Zach's horrible purple hood with the hole under the right armpit. It sits just slightly too wide over Chris's shoulders, the sweatshirt -- he starts shooting _Into the Woods_ soon and they, according to his agent, want him "lithe" -- and it hangs a little long in the sleeves, too. Chris keeps finding himself rubbing the fabric between his thumb and forefinger like he's trying to leave an imprint or something. 

There's a MacIntosh apple sitting at a jaunty angle on top of a pile of other, and obviously lesser, MacIntosh apples. Chris rescues it from its mediocre existence as a big fish in an organically grown pond and throws it in the air, catches it, takes a bite. 

"Oh my god, really?" Zach says, appearing at Chris's elbow as if by magic and snatching the apple away from him. "Did you even wash this?" 

"It's organic," Chris says, shrugging and snatching it back. He takes another huge bite, goes out of his way to spray Zach in the face a little as he says, "Since when are you such a germaphobe?" 

"Since when can you not wait until you check out to eat your groceries like a normal person?" Zach demands. "Or, no, hold on: probably always, and I just didn't know because I've never -- actually, wait, have we never grocery shopped together before? That can't be right; I've fed you so many times."

"Is my sister still on the phone?" Chris says, noticing it in Zach's hand. "Are you ignoring my sister right now?" 

"Huh? Oh, yeah, here." Zach offers him the phone and then pushes the cart away from him, calling, "You're paying for these fucking pecans, asshole," as he goes. 

"Sorry," Chris says to Kathy, around another bite of apple. "You know how he gets when he doesn't get his way." 

"You haven't taken any Deloreans up to 88 miles per hour recently, have you?" Kathy's doing that thing she used to do when they were kids and Chris managed to fuck something up to the point of ridiculousness, where her voice straddles the line between conversational and utterly incredulous. "Because I feel like I'm talking to you in five years." 

"Yeah?" Chris isn’t really paying attention as he reads the ingredients on a bag of granola -- he's really over flax seeds. It takes him a second to catch up what she’s actually said, to add, "Wait, what? Why?" 

"Forget it," Kath says. "What on earth are you doing in New York?" 

Chris shrugs, holding the phone between his shoulder and his ear so he can throw the granola -- which he now knows to be flax seed-free -- in a high arc towards Zach's cart. He's too far away to actually make the shot, but he does hit Zach in the back of the head, knocking his hideous green paisley-print bandana askew. After experiencing about six seconds of pure satisfaction, Chris realizes that Zach is probably going to actually kill him; he flashes Zach's contorted furious war-face a quick grin before he ducks behind another aisle for safety. 

"Chris?" Kath says, which is when Chris remember that, right, a shrug isn't a sufficient method of communication in the circumstance of a phone call.

"Right, sorry," he says, "distracted. What did you want to -- oh, what I'm doing in New York." He pauses, realizing he doesn't actually know the answer to that question. "Uh. I'm… just here, I guess? I mean, I came in to see Zach's show, and the Jack Ryan press shit starts in a couple of days, so I'll have to leave then." 

"Zach's show," Kath says slowly. "So… wait, didn't you leave for that like three weeks ago? Have you been in New York for three weeks?" 

"Uh," Chris says again. He blinks at a display of applesauce, but it offers him little clarity. "I, yeah, I guess so. I hadn't really thought about it." 

"You hadn't really -- Jesus, Chris, aren't you working? You can't just decide to play hooky on your job, you know that, right?" 

Chris rolls his eyes at the applesauce. " _Christ_ , Kathy. Yes, I know; I'm not fifteen fucking years old anymore. I haven't had anything I couldn't do remotely, and I've actually taken some meetings here, so you can fuck right off with the judgement." 

" _Excuse_ me," Kathy snaps, "a simple 'yes,' would've been fine, don't talk to me like that." 

"Whatever, you're not _Mom_ ," Chris finds himself saying; then, realizing he's regressed into behaving like the fifteen year old he just claimed he wasn't, he takes a deep breath. He can hear her doing the same thing on the other end of the line, knows that the same thing is playing in her head as in his -- their mother's voice, advising them to look their feelings in their faces. He smiles despite himself. 

"Sorry," Kath says, rueful. "I don't mean to baby you, it's just --" 

"Habit, yeah, it's fine, don't worry about it. You probably like," Chris winces down at a six-pack of beer, "touched a nerve or whatever, I shouldn't have snapped at you. I guess I didn't really think about how long I've been crashing on Zach's couch, you know?" 

"You're not in a _hotel_?" Kathy says.

At the same moment Zach, appearing from fucking nowhere again, says, "Really? And here I've been counting the days so I can document the imposition for science." 

"I'll get a hotel," Chris says at once, dropping the hand holding the phone to his side, the sound of Kathy's voice fading out to a distant hum. Zach's eyes widen -- probably at what a douche Chris has been for _three fucking weeks_ , Jesus -- and he scrambles to make it right. "Seriously, I'll call right now, I didn't mean to be --" 

"Did she drop you on your head or something as a child?" Zach demands, nodding towards the phone. "Honestly, I was obviously kidding. Have you ever even met me? Do you really think I'd be shy about kicking you out if I wanted you gone? God."

And then plucks a box of cereal off the shelf behind Chris, huffs, and pushes the cart away again, blasé as anything. Chris blinks after him for a second, then shrugs and starts trailing after him, calls, "That was almost nice, Zach!" just for shits and giggles. Zach flips him the finger over his shoulder; it's weird, the way that settles the nerves still bouncing wildly in Chris's stomach. 

"I don't understand my life," Chris confesses when he picks the phone back up. "D'you wanna maybe like, tell me why you were calling? Since I can't imagine you're enjoying yourself." 

"On the contrary," Kath says, "this is the most fun I've had all day," and, worryingly, Chris can't tell if she's being dry or not. "But actually, I was just wondering about your holiday plans. I know the new movie's got a Christmas release, but the kids want to see you, and I know Mom and Dad would be happy to get a family day. New Year's?"

"Uh," says Chris. "Yeah, I -- yeah. Wow. It's almost that time again, huh?" He mouths _New Year's_ at Zach when he raises a questioning eyebrow, is relieved to see his own surprise echoed on Zach's face. "That snuck up on me, but yeah, that'll probably work. Let me check my dates and make sure I'm back in LA, okay?" 

Kathy laughs. "You sure you won't have moved to the East Coast by then?" 

Chris rolls his eyes. " _Goodbye_ , Kathy." 

"Zach's invited too, if that's what you're worried about," Kathy says. She laughs again when Chris huffs. "All right, I'm done, I swear. Bye. Don't forget to check your schedule, okay?" 

"Yeah, yeah," Chris disconnects the call on the sound of her laughing at him, and promptly feels like a dick. "Fuck, I forgot to tell her to say hi to the kids for me." 

"I'm sure she will anyway," Zach says, waving a hand. Then, before Chris can call her back, he takes Chris's phone away and pockets it. "Don't pout. You can call her later if you feel that bad about it, but I'm not spending another twenty minutes wandering around in here aimlessly because you can't split your attention." 

"Fuck you," Chris says easily, "my attention's been totally split this whole time." 

Zach sighs. "No. I've been herding you, like a sheep, because I was a little afraid of what would happen if I left you on your own. Look at what's in this cart, Christopher. Does this look like the cart of men who have proceeded through the grocery store in a normal fashion?" 

Chris looks in the cart. It contains: pluots, apples, oranges, spinach, those pecans from earlier, granola, a disproportionate amount of Vitamin Water Zero, and six packages of the weird turkey jerky Zach's completely addicted to. Shrugging, Chris says, "Looks pretty normal to me." 

"'Actor Chris Pine, Found Dead In His Home At 32,'" Zach intones. He starts grabbing things off the shelves so haphazardly that Chris is almost positive he's only doing it to make a point as he says, "'Cause of Death: Utter Inability To Manage His Own Life.' That'll be the headline." 

"Good thing you didn't go into journalism, isn't it?" 

"Bite me," Zach says. "And put down the hot sauce, we're not getting that. I don't even like hot sauce." 

Chris puts down the hot sauce. He means to pick up something else, to tell Zach that Kathy says he's invited to New Year's, to do something; instead he catches himself rubbing at the sleeve of Zach's sweatshirt again, and this time it draws him up short. He's thinking about Kathy's dumb Delorean joke and how Zach looks shitty under the florescent lighting of the store, dressed like a drunk hobo and glaring at two seemingly identical bottles of salad dressing through his horn-rimmed glasses. He's thinking about forgetting the passage of time on Zach's too-soft, bad-patterned couch, about how it's almost _next year_ , this huge, nebulous concept that's snuck up on him somehow. That's not something that happens to Chris, normally; normally he knows exactly how long he's got until his latest new leaf is turned over. He knows it's an arbitrary concept, but he doesn't care, hasn't ever cared -- he's the type of person who likes making resolutions, taking every chance he can to reinvent himself, just a little. 

For all he does a good impression of it sometimes, Chris isn't stupid. He's known for as long as they've been close that his whatever for Zach _is_ a whatever, doesn't have a label that really works. It's not even the sex piece -- like, yeah, Zach's attractive, Chris is a red-blooded male with eyeballs and a libido that's never been opposed to the concept of sucking dick, he fucking sees it. He knows. But there are plenty of people Chris wants to fuck, get fucked by, whatever; he's used to that, it barely registers a lot of the time. It's the relationship piece that's weird with Zach, how raw it leaves Chris and how much Chris cares and this part, too, how he can get so comfortable so quickly that he loses track of his baseline. He's looking at Zach with the stupid salad dressing and he's thinking that maybe he _is_ himself in five years, somehow. It's totally insane crazy nonsense except for the part where it feels too believable, unnervingly correct. Chris could completely buy this as his future. He's pretty sure he'd even be happy if it was. 

Somewhere in the back of Chris's mind, the lighting shifts, and there's a familiar, understated little lurch in his chest as the new sight-lines illuminate something that's been lurking in his periphery for years. The thing is, Chris is maybe a little bit in love with Zach. He feels pretty stupid about it, honestly. He probably should have noticed before. 

"Oh my god, what is it now," Zach says. Chris blinks and Zach’s moved, abandoned the salad dressings, is standing right in front of Chris with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyebrows pulled down. That familiar understated lurch happens again, and Chris realizes this is where he knows it from: from the way he feels when he looks at Zach, pretty much always. 

_Really stupid,_ Chis decides, even as he makes his excuses, lets Zach grab him by the sleeve in impatience and drag him along. _Really_ fucking _stupid, Christ Almighty._

 

**still sunny, serving mai-tais (january 2014)**

"I haven't had somebody throw wine on me in, like," Chris pauses, thinks about it. "A long time. Maybe, hey, Zach, maybe ever," he adds, when Zach snorts his disbelief. That's a lie, though. The details might be a little fuzzy on the previous incidents, but this definitely isn't the first time.

"You," says Zach, "are plastered. Also? Embarrassing. Your suit is ruined; you deserved it, but this suit didn't. Don't speak." 

Chris hums his agreement, leans back against the counter, tips his head sideways so it can rest against the wall and fights the urge to close his eyes. Whoever’s bathroom this is, they've got bad taste in granite and good taste in light fixtures; it makes the place look kind of like a vampire coffin room, stark black walls illuminated by the faint halos around the little inset lights. Zach, freshly returned to California and still East Coast pale against this backdrop, looks a little like he might be about to say, "I vant to suck your blood." 

"You look kinda like you're about to say, 'I vant to suck your blood,'" says Chris, who, in a brief moment of hideous sobriety, realizes he has had quite a lot to drink. 

Zach says it, though. He leans over Chris's shoulder to wet the cloth hand towel he pulled out of a basket -- which, hey, Chris might not know exactly whose bathroom he's in right now but he knows that this is a house, a _residence_ , and what kind of residence stocks cloth hand towels like they're the fucking country club is what Chris wants to know -- but whatever, it's fine. It's fine, because Zach leans over Chris's shoulder to wet the towel and actually says, in Chris's ear, laughing on it like it's the best joke he's ever heard, "I vant to suck your blood," which is just… crazy. Amazing. Cramazing.

"You're like," Chris says, jabbing him in the side with two fingers, "you're like friendly-drunk right now, Zach. Zachary. Zacha-racka-ding-dong." 

"No," Zach says firmly. "I will cut your tongue out." 

"Oh look, it is you," Chris says. Zach presses the napkin -- towel -- thousand dollar freaky bathroom linen, whatever, Chris's life has gotten so weird -- to Chris's collar, the side of Chris's neck. Somehow, this makes Chris feel both more and less damp. "I was worried you were like, a nice person. In a Zach suit." 

Zach's brow creases slightly. "I'm a nice person." 

"And I am a fancy hand towel," Chris agrees, closing his eyes after all. He takes back all his charitable thoughts on the lighting -- hideously bright is what it is, and overpowering. Oppressive. "Or a very small dog. Or one of those awards from tonight -- what awards even were they, Zach? Sometimes I feel like this whole season blends together into one big ceremony where nobody I like ever wins anything." He brightens, thinking about it. "Except Anne. Anne won the Oscar last year, that was so awesome." 

"It was the SAGs tonight." Zach dabs at Chris's shirt with more force than necessary, hard enough that it kind of hurts. "I can't believe you forget that. You don't think I'm a nice person?" 

"I can't believe you _do_ think you're a nice person." 

"I didn't say," Zach says, and stops.

He stays quiet so long that Chris opens his eyes to look, remembers that he got drunk to _keep_ himself from looking, was wine-soaked for being too forward with a woman who deserved better than his ham-fisted attempts to make himself stop seeing it: Zach's sharp gaze and ridiculous eyebrows. The fact that his right eye is a very slightly different shape than his left one, which is a thing Chris hasn't actually been able to stop thinking about since he noticed it back in New York, stealing pointed glances over a bottle of Merlot. He keeps trying to use it as a life preserver or something, keeps saying it to himself in his car, _You can't be in love with him, you can't. One of his eyes is permanently doing a very slight judgmental squint and you'll probably kill yourself trying to make it go away, but you won’t, it’s just his face. He'll laugh at you and break your heart because that's who he is and that's who you are and you know it, you've always known it, stop thinking about it. Get over yourself._

It hasn't been helping. Like, at all. Like Chris kind of thinks he'd have more luck writing odes to Zach's weird perma-squint, or the way his forehead juts out too far over his eyes like a happy geological accident, than he would trying to forget about these stupid fucking feelings he never fucking asked for. 

In this lighting, with both of them too drunk to do that thing they both get paid the fancy hand towel money to do, Zach looks a little like a wounded animal, like he wants to shy away from Chris and lick his wounds. Chris can't sit with the strangeness of that, to be this fucked up and realize that he put that expression there -- that he even has the power to hurt Zach, who always seems so impenetrable. He reaches out to grab Zach's arm, the one that's not holding the napkin, and presses his thumb into the joint of Zach's elbow. It's a good suit, the one Zach's wearing, this dove grey that matches his personality and all the things Chris wants to say to him right now. It reminds Chris of a night in Paris so long ago that he almost wonders if he made it up.

"Not being a nice person isn't the same as not being a good person," Chris says.

"I know," Zach snaps. "Don't do this. Just shut up and let me try to make you less pathetic, all right?" 

"I think _you_ should shut up," Chris says, fierce suddenly, "because I just meant -- you said the vampire thing, okay? That's all it was, because that was very… you don't normally play along, that's all. Or, you do, but not with something like that, it's -- whatever! I don't think you're a bad fucking person, Zach, Jesus. I'm not that much of an idiot."

"You're drunk," Zach says, "and that's the most selfish apology I've ever heard. Was that even an apology? I think I should make a rule, where it doesn't count if you don't actually say the words 'I'm sorry.'" 

"I really like you," says Chris. 

"There's wine on your tie," says Zach, and when he pulls the silken strip of fabric out from underneath Chris's waistcoat, Chris kisses him. 

It is… stupid. It is really, really stupid, because Chris is drunk and Zach just saw a beautiful woman throw a glass of wine in his face, and yeah, it was funny, and yeah, Zach laughed his ass off, but Chris knows what Zach thinks of him. Chris knows Zach thinks he's a coward and a cad because Zach’s says so, is too honest not to, and this, Chris reeling forward after too many mai-tais in the aftermath of a bad apology, is not going to prove Zach wrong. This is going to make Chris look opportunistic and shallow, like he got drunk and Zach was just there, and hey, hey, maybe he is a coward. Maybe he is because that hurts less than thinking about the truth, the "I love you," Chris keeps barely stopping himself from uttering and the way Zach would roll his eyes if he knew. 

So Chris kisses him, screws his eyes shut and presses his wine-stained mouth close-lipped against Zach's wide-open surprise, hovers two bold fingers against the very edge of Zach's jaw. When nothing happens for one horrible hanging second Chris doesn't move away, because when he moves away there are going to be consequences and he likes it here, where it's agonizingly awkward but at least not painful yet. Not painful is always better than the alternative. Chris could stay here all night. 

Then Zach makes this small, furious noise, this noise Chris has never heard before from anyone, and before he can think about it everything changes. Zach yanks down hard on the tie he's still holding, so Chris is jerked forward, so their already-touching mouths knock together so hard Chris can briefly feel the surface of Zach's teeth through both their lips. It hurts, enough that tears spring to life behind Chris's closed eyes, enough that his dick jerks awake in a combination of shock and arousal; Zach chases his mouth through its slight instinctive recoil and Chris opens up to the press of Zach's tongue so easy that a shiver of surprise runs down his spine.

Nobody's ever kissed Chris this way, filthy and pointed and like they're trying to proving something to him, like they're trying to teach him a lesson. Nobody's ever made Chris feel slutty from kissing, but Zach does, letting go of Chris's tie just to put his hands on both of Chris's hips and press him back into the counter. Chris arches without even meaning to, thinks, _good mouth, good hands, good good good_ , forgets the rest of everything for the sake of the way Zach's wrecking him, _wrecking_ him, with just this -- 

\--and then Zach shoves away from him, eyes flashing, a cold bloodless anger radiating off of him in a way that Chris knows works in sharp contrast with how furiously he himself must be blushing. He's trying to think of something to say but he can't, because Zach's mouth is curling into that sneer he gets when he's really furious but it's swollen, too, swollen with touching Chris, and Chris is too… _something_ , right now, to work through that distraction. 

"Zach," he says anyway.

"You know what, Chris," Zach says, "maybe I don't think you're a very fucking nice person, either." 

He walks out. Chris blinks after him, at the open and close of the heavy wood door, and thinks the woman from earlier -- "Pig," she said as she tossed the wine -- was probably spot-fucking-on. 

 

**and other einsteinian theories (march 2014)**

Chris wakes up to the sensation of being jabbed painfully hard in the side by a blunt object. Well, of being jabbed in the side, anyway; the question of whether or not it's actually a 'painfully hard' jab by any normal standards is one Chris can't currently answer. That's because he feels maybe he traded in his body for a large ambulatory bruise, and, actually, ambulatory is also a stretch. He's pretty sure he's on the couch in his living room, because his face feels like it usually does when he falls asleep on its rough fabric, but it's hard to be certain without opening his eyes.

He thinks about opening his eyes. Then he thinks better of it; whatever the world has to offer him right now, it can't possibly be something he wants. 

The blunt object jabs him again, and Chris groans at the cruelty of the world. He waves one arm blindly behind him, middle finger up, in the hopes of either swatting away his attacker or communicating to them his desire for them to fuck off. Something or someone snorts a laugh, but Chris elects to ignore it in favor of wondering how the hell he even came to be on his couch in mild-to-middling agony. Once he dismisses the possibility of a hangover and settles firmly on probably-the-flu, he fuzzily remembers earlier, waking up all feverish and gross but going to the _Into the Woods_ table read anyway, and then…

"Oh, god," Chris mumbles into couch, the horror of it all coming back to him as the relentless blunt object from hell jabs at him a third time, "oh, god, I embarrassed myself in front of Meryl Streep." 

"Ah," says a familiar voice, "well, I wouldn't worry about it. It was bound to happen eventually; did you not know that when you agreed to work with her?" 

If Chris's muscles didn't feel more or less like someone stuck them in a blender and hit frappe, his entire body would tense up. As it is, he manages the Herculean task of cracking one eye open to confirm that, in fact, yes: " _Zach_?" 

"You didn't know, did you. What do you even see when you look in the mirror?" 

Zach's wearing fraying jeans and a tank top that's about two sizes too small for him and might, actually, be Chris's; it's hard for Chris to be sure, because looking at it just now is an exercise in being freezing cold by proxy. However, he is entirely certain that he hasn't seen Zach in a month in a half, since the night they kissed and Zach stormed off. Chris is pretty sure that's his fault -- the kissing, yeah, definitely, but also the radio silence. Zach was fucking pissed, but he would have gotten over it, Chris is almost positive, if Chris had just applied the right tools to the job. A box of profiteroles from that bakery he likes sent to his door with a written apology, a few weeks of groveling via text message, and Zach would've caved, probably. Would've let them both laugh it off as a mistake, because at the end of the day, for all he can be mean as hell, Zach values his friendships, doesn't waste time building relationships with people he doesn't intend to keep working on. He wouldn't let a little drunken making out between friends sour things. 

Except. Except that Chris _didn't_ send pastries or text messages, didn't write out an apology, didn't call. Chris sat stewing in his own fear for a month and a half, missing Zach with an aching desperation that was only dwarfed by the size of his panic, because: what was he going to say, if Zach wanted to talk about it? He knew why Zach was pissed, knew Zach thought Chris had been -- well, "taking advantage," is what Zach would probably mean, but he'd say, "being an opportunistic asshole," and it's not even that he'd be wrong. It's that it wouldn't be the whole story and Chris wouldn't be able to lie to him and it's just too much, it's just been too much, and he was just waiting for things to calm down. 

Of course, now that Zach is in front of him Chris thinks feverishly that this is probably never going to calm down, and also that he's probably an awful friend, that if he could muster the energy for it he'd feel really terrible right now. But what he says -- because it's easy, because he's sick and he's scared and it's the obvious question -- is, "Man, are you holding my pool skimmer right now?" 

"No," Zach says, rolling his eyes, "I brought my own from home -- yes, Christopher, I am holding your pool skimmer." 

"Uh," Chris says, "why?" 

In response to this, Zach jabs him in the side with the blunt bottom end of the skimmer and oh, hey, there's that sensation explained. "Don't frown at me, I just didn't want to get any closer than this. You look like a portent of death." 

"Just my own, not yours. This is really fucking weird." Chris sniffs, then groans when Zach jabs him again. "Ugh. Hurts." 

"You are literally five years old." 

"Why are you even here," Chris says. He turns his face back into the couch, where everything is soft and dark and not Zach Quinto at all. "Did my pain like. Summon you. Did you come to hear about how I puked in front of Meryl Streep." 

Zach makes a small noise that Chris thinks might actually be pitying, says, "Well, she's a legend of stage and screen, so…." 

"So?" 

"I've actually got nothing," Zach says after a second. "To make you feel better, I mean. That's the worst thing I've ever heard. Like, my balls have retreated up into my body, that's how bad that is." 

Chris coughs wetly into his couch for a second in sheer despair. "Why," he says, when he's done, "are you _here_?" 

Zach jabs him with the pool skimmer again; he's clearly doing it for sport. "Kathy called me." 

"Kathy called _you_?" Chris stops, thinks. "Wait. Who called Kathy?" 

"You, apparently," Zach says. He's raising an eyebrow when Chris forces himself to look, and there's something in his expression that Chris would mistake for concern if he were any other living person. As it is, Chris thinks it's probably gas. "She said you left her a message said that your life was over and also that you were dying, and she wanted me to come make sure you were alive. She said to tell you that she's sorry, but her kids are sick too and they're marginally less capable of taking care of themselves than you are." 

"Kathy called _you_?" Chris says again. " _Why?_ " 

Zach sighs heavily. "I have no idea, Chris. Maybe she thinks of me as nurturing." The amount of effort that it takes Chris to lift his head and pointedly eye the pool skimmer is distressing, but it's worth it for the way Zach scowls and snaps, "Or, I don't know, _maybe_ she thinks I'm the closest thing you have to someone willing to put up with you long enough to ensure your continued existence." 

"She’s perceptive that way," Chris says. He flops back down on the sofa, closes his eyes again; Zach's face is doing something complicated and Chris is too tired to figure that out right now. "Thanks for, uh. Checking or whatever. Good to see you. You can go, though, I've accepted my death and intend to accept it graciously." 

"God," Zach says, marveling, "I've never met anyone who can chew the scenery in their own life." 

"Look in the mirror." 

"Fuck you," Zach says, and he's laughing, because he's one of those mythical creatures who drinks the pain of others. "Can you sit up, you total child, or am I going to need to go find a Hazmat suit and manhandle you?" 

" _Can_ ," says Chris, "interesting word choice. More relevant question: _will_ I sit up. No. Is that answer." He coughs again, scowls, adds, "Stop making me say things, it hurts." 

"Well, stop making me ask things and I won't have to," Zach says, in a maddeningly reasonable tone. "You're one of those needy sick people, why am I surprised -- no, hold on, I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised, because you've done this to me on two different press tours and I've just been," he waves his hands, narrowly avoiding taking out one of Chris's light fixtures with the skimmer, "blocking it out. For my sanity. And for my continued ability to look at you without laughing, which, let me tell you, is a struggle even at the best of times." He sighs, jabs Chris one more time with the skimmer and then laughs again, softly this time, when Chris hisses at him. "C'mon, Chris. Get up. You'll sleep better in an actual bed." 

"I'd sleep better if you stopped _attacking me_ ," Chris mutters, but he forces himself upwards until he's in an actual sitting position, tips his head back against the couch. "Aagh. The end. No more. Here is fine." 

"I'm ashamed to share a trainer with you right now," Zach says. He crosses his arms over his chest and raises both eyebrows -- _nurturing_ , Chris thinks. What a joke. "This is the single most pathetic thing I've ever seen, and I've seen you attempt to dance." 

"Just because you treat everything with, like," Chris shivers and uses the motion to propel himself into standing, knowing even as he does it that he's employing the specific brand of physics that only makes sense to the blearily ill, "I don't know, a million viewings of _The Wizard of Oz_ or whatever. Freak." 

"Sorry," Zach says, "was there a point in that somewhere?" He seems to be spotting Chris with the pool skimmer, holding it so the net is hovering just next to Chris as he drags himself towards his bedroom, like Zach's planning to catch Chris in it if Chris falls down. It's oddly comforting, actually. 

" _The Wizard of Oz_ sucks," Chris says, because it's a lot less embarrassing than admitting to that thought about the net. "You suck. Fuck munchkins." 

"'Fuck munchkins,'" Zach repeats, enunciating every syllable with pointed, incredulous clarity. He sounds like he's trying very hard not to laugh; good for him. Chris misses the ability to laugh, not to mention the ability to enunciate clearly. Or, like, breathe through his nose. Zach should enjoy these things. It is his duty. To mankind. 

Chris can see his bedroom door. "Fuck the yellow brick road," he says, in an attempt at self-motivation; the ten feet between him and his duvet seem like an endless journey. "Fuck witches. Fuck wizards. Fuck Dorothy." 

"And her little dog, too?" 

"You think you're so funny," Chris says, not without bitterness. 

"No," Zach corrects, "I _know_ that I am, in fact, incredibly funny. You just, I don't know, scared your sense of humor away with your death pallor or something." 

"I'll death your pallor, how's that for humor," Chris says, and then, gloriously, reaches the side his bed. He collapses forward, hitting the surface chest-first and immediately hacking as a result, but it's worth it, it's _so worth it_ , for reasons of the sheer enveloping softness. "Oh, god, you were so right. You were so right, Zach, you should be given a medal." 

"You know what works with training dogs," Zach says, "is positive reinforcement. So I'm going to go get you a glass of water now, and I want you to understand, Chris, that you will get a glass of water every time you recognize that I deserve a medal for the Herculean task of dealing with you. Do you understand?" 

"Herculean task," Chris says, "I was just thinking about that. Phrase, I mean. Not dealing with myself, I just… do that. Because. I mean. I'm me. There's nowhere to go. Water sounds nice. You're nice." 

"Really," Zach says sharply. Then, with less vitriol: "Dogs are easier. Don't move."

"Funny," Chris says, "right." 

He thinks he maybe kind of passes out for awhile, because when he opens his eyes he's underneath the covers instead of on top of them, and there's a pillow under his head that wasn't there before. This is a mystery until he notices the glass of water on his nightstand and then, a moment later, Zach sitting at the foot of his bed. He's leaning against the backboard with his knees pulled up high enough for him to balance a book against; Chris can't see what he's reading, but he can see the edges of the pages peeking out over his thigh. 

"I don't think you're maintaining pool-skimmer distance," Chris says in greeting, wincing a little at the rasp in his voice. "This is like, two whole feet closer to me than the pool skimmer allowed. Just, you know. So you know." 

Zach doesn't reply, doesn't even look up from him his book; he just quirks a very small smile and tilts his head towards the glass of water. When Chris doesn't move, Zach reaches out one socked foot and nudges at the lump in the covers that represents Chris's legs until Chris groans and sits up enough to take a few sips. It actually makes him feel a little better, which would be the worst part of this little exchange if not for the even _worse_ part, which is the fact that Zach starts humming. 

"Is that 'If I Only Had A Brain?'" Chris settles back in under the covers and glares at Zach with as much irritation as he can muster, which admittedly, is not actually all that much. "Seriously, you know _The Wizard of Oz_ doesn't have healing powers, right?" 

The slight smile grows a little wider, and Zach shrugs, drops the melody. "Yeah, I guess. Everybody has their things, you know? I used to watch it when I got sick as a kid." 

"Yeah," Chris says, "I knew that, you told me." 

"What? When?" 

"Uh, Madrid, I think?" Chris yawns, tries to think. "Or on an airplane, maybe? I don't know. First press tour, though. I don't remember what we were talking about. Maybe you were sick. Or I was sick. Or someone was." 

"Your logic is impeccable, Captain," Zach says, and he does it in the Spock voice, which probably shouldn't make Chris as happy as it does. It's just that… Chris has to be forgiven if Zach's doing that, using the voice and calling him Captain, because he won't do it for just anyone. He's actually pretty strict about not doing at all, excepting when he's in a very specific, very charitable mood with a very specific group of people. It's soft, for Zach. Tender. 

"Fuck munchkins, Mr. Spock," Chris says, hiding the curve of his smile against the pillow, and Zach laughs. 

"Yeah, you expressed that sentiment already, it's been noted for the record," he says, his own voice this time. "Actually I'm pretty sure nothing from that movie escaped your wrath, except maybe the Tin Man." Zach pauses and then winces comically, twisting his face into an exaggerated grimace. "Ew, wait. Please don't tell me you think of yourself as the Tin Man, that would be so terrible." 

"No, _you're_ the Tin Man," Chris says. "I'm the lion." 

All the softness vanishes from Zach's face, and he narrows his eyes as he frowns. "Fuck, I don't know why you keep -- god, forget it. I have a heart." 

"You're the Tin Man at the end, then, after he gets one," Chris says, and shifts on the pillow so one of his eyes is covered, so he doesn't have to look at Zach with quite so much of himself. "That's better anyway. You're only him because, you know, the whole oil can thing is like a metaphor, right? For how you don't loosen up with people until you get to know them. And the Tin Man has a heart through the whole movie, it's all symbolic and shit. You always think I mean these things I don't mean." 

A weighted pause, and then Zach shifts, and it's like the suspicion on his face shifts with him, vanishes as though it was never there. "Oh. That's -- okay. Fine. I can be the Tin Man, I guess." 

"Be whoever you want, I don't care. Be the dog, or, I don't know, the Lollipop League--" 

"Guild." 

" _Freak_ ," Chris says, more fondly than he means to. "It doesn't even matter, because I'm still the lion." 

"Ah," Zach says, the corner of his mouth twitching up, "so this is about you. I should have known. For what it's worth, Chris, I've always seen you as the scarecrow." 

"Asshole," Chris says, "you're the one who made me the lion."

"What, because I called you a coward once?" Shaking his head, Zach runs his fingers through his hair. "That was like a thousand years ago, and we were wasted. I didn't even think you remembered that." 

" _You_ haven't forgotten," Chris says, closing his eyes, "and you're not sorry, I know when you're sorry and anyway I wasn't even, I'm not talking about that." He swallows around a lump in his throat, and he's not sure if it's fear or the flu, if it even really matters. "It's not -- I don't know, I want to say things to you but I just… don't. Or like, apologize, maybe, for things, or ask you what you mean, or if you mean what I think you do. Sometimes I want to do that. Or… whatever, Zach, I'm the lion and you're the reason I'm the lion and let's just forget I said anything, this is stupid." 

For a long time, Zach says nothing, and true to his point Chris keeps his eyes closed. He can't bear to watch Zach's face, to see if Zach understood what Chris just said -- not that Chris even understands what he just said, exactly. He knows what it meant, because what it _meant_ has all but taken him over, lately, made him into someone he doesn't even really like. But understanding it? Chris can't begin to, not any part of it. 

Except then Zach, in this careful, hesitant voice Chris barely recognizes, says, "You could say things. I mean, I think you'd have to… get over yourself a little first, maybe, but I don't think you're a coward. I didn't know you that well when I said it, really. I think you're self-absorbed."

Chris opens his eyes in mild indignation. "Oh, good, that's _much_ better." 

"It's not about better," Zach says, "that's not what people are like, better and worse. Sometimes I wonder if you've ever actually interacted with another human being, Chris, it's -- look, I think you see the world the way you think it is, instead of the way it actually is, and then you get all," he pauses, huffs out a breath. "I don't know. Self-correcting, or something. Whatever, it's not my point." 

This, Chris feels, is a lot of unfollowable nonsense to be dropping on a sick person in such a serious tone of voice. But because he doesn't actually want Zach to stop talking -- doesn't actually want Zach to _leave_ , is hoping, somewhere under a layer of embarrassment and confusion, that maybe what Zach is about to say will ease the knot that's been tied in Chris's chest since New York -- he says, "What is your point?" 

"If you only had a brain," Zach says, but it's quiet, and very nearly kind. He tilts his head at Chris and smiles, this slow, close-lipped thing that makes him look like he has a secret, as he lifts the book on his lap. It's the copy of _Slowness_ Chris bought after that rooftop in Berlin, the one that's been sitting on his nightstand for half a year. Zach turns it over in hands, still looking at Chris. He says, "You bought other Kundera." 

"I still like _Unbearable Lightness_ best." 

"Plebeian," Zach dismisses, "have you even finished reading this?" 

"Kinda," Chris says on a cracking yawn. He feels like he's lost the thread of their conversation -- like their conversation has lost the thread of their conversation -- but he's exhausted and almost can't bring himself to care. "Not really. I've been flipping around a little, can't quite get into it yet." He takes as deep a breath as he’s currently capable of, and, before he can stop himself, adds, "You could read it out loud. I mean, if you wanted." 

"If I wanted," Zach says, soft, mocking. 

Chris closes his eyes again, hopes that if he's flushed Zach'll blame it on the fever. "Or not, do what you want. I'm asleep in five minutes either way, so."

With his eyes closed, Chris's world is reduced down to a few simple things: the warmth of the pillow against his cheek, the faint hum of the air conditioner, the way the mattress slants, ever so slightly, towards where Zach is sitting. Chris hears Zach clear his throat and clear it again, the rustle of book pages, and then nothing, nothing, nothing, for what feels like a long time. He's mostly given up, honestly -- it was a weird thing to ask, anyway, _Read to me,_ like Chris is a child or something, and Zach shouldn't have said Chris could tell him things when he obviously doesn't want to hear them -- when Zach draws a huge breath and begins to speak.

“Love is by definition an unmerited gift; being loved without meriting it is the very proof of real love." Zach's reading voice is the same deep, theatrical one that Chris remembers from _The Glass Menagerie_ , and Chris realizes with a muted little thrill that that's something about Zach he never knew before. "If a woman tells me: I love you because you're intelligent, because you're decent, because you buy me gifts, because you don't chase women, because you do the dishes, then I'm disappointed; such love seems a rather self-interested business. How much finer it is to hear…" Zach stops, clears his throat again. Chris is so tired that he can't bear to open his eyes, but he thinks there's some wildness in the sound of Zach’s breathing, the over-long pause. 

"How much finer it is to hear," Zach says finally, quietly, voice back in its normal register, "I'm crazy about you even though you're neither intelligent nor decent, even though you're a liar, an egotist, a bastard.” 

The knot that's been tied in Chris's chest since New York comes loose after all. 

"I kind of thought you'd be angry at me forever," Chris mumbles, an inch from sleep and heavy-limbed, confessional. There's a hand at his cheek, and then his forehead, and Chris isn't sure if he's imagining it or not. 

"Anger's all relative," Zach says. When Chris wakes up, he's gone. 

 

**angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection (march 2014)**

"So," says Zach. 

"So," says Chris. 

Silence.

They're leaning against the back wall of this little equipment shed on the fucking _Into the Woods_ set, which Chris really will not miss when they're done shooting. The people he's working with are great, but Chris has learned through trial and considerable error that he's better with nature in practice than in theory. The desert is fine; the desert he likes. This lush forestry they’ve basically created for the sake of the film is an exercise in too much pollen, too many bugs, and too few places to run and grab a coffee. The krafty guys, god love them, are great at making the coconut kale smoothies Chris needs after anything that's rough on his throat, but they can't make a decent latte to save their lives. 

This is what Chris has been reduced to: mentally complaining about banalities to distract himself from his current reality. To keep himself from saying, _Hey, Zach, remember how three weeks ago you came over to my house while I was sick and you read to me and I didn't realize that it might or might not have been a confession of love until after you'd already fucked off to New York for two weeks and started sending me aggressive texts about how much you hate Sondheim, could you maybe clear some of that up?_ To keep himself from saying, _Are you_ really _just here because you wanted to meet Meryl or am I reading correctly the fact that you can't stop looking at my mouth?_ To keep himself from saying, _I can't stop looking at your mouth._

"So," says Chris. 

"So," says Zach. 

Silence. 

This has never actually happened to Chris before -- not with Zach, anyway. He's well versed in awkward silences with others, having lived out his entire high school experience and large parts of his college one as well, but with Zach it's never happened, not once. There's always been something to say, whether it was about the relationship between their _Trek_ characters, or their opinions on Proust, or even just good-natured hating on mutual friends; their dynamic has been many things, but it's never been quiet. 

But now Chris is blanking, somehow can't think of anything to say that won't be weird, or make it weird, or something. He can't confess to the dreams he's been having about Zach, one after the other, like every time he closes his eyes some new aspect of Zach feels it necessary to make itself known -- there was one about _just Zach's hands_ , nothing else, just his hands, what the hell was that? Chris woke up feeling like a psychopath. A really horny psychopath. 

Kind of like he feels now, actually, finally tearing his eyes away from Zach's mouth only to fixate on the curving space just underneath his jaw, how easy it would be for Chris to lean over and scrape his teeth along just that one spot. Then Zach's shoulders, the never-quite-forgotten realization of Zach's size advantage and the fresher thought of what that would mean if they were fucking. Then Zach's arms, and his wrists, and his fucking chest, and Chris is honestly pretty glad that they're sitting down because he thinks that if he could see Zach's ass right now some disaster would occur. He'd open his mouth and nothing would come out but the word _Sex_ , not even in an interrogatory tone or anything, just _Sex sex sex sex sex,_ like that one song that always pops into Chris's head in moments like these and flatly refuses to leave. 

"So how are the dogs?" Chris says, in this horrible strangled voice, at the exact same moment Zach says, "Talked to your sister lately?" 

They laugh. Awkwardly. Chris is going to kill himself or shove his tongue down Zach's throat right here, except that the last time he did that he almost ruined everything, so he can't. He can't, but on the other hand he's pretty sure Zach wants him to, or wants to do it _to_ him, maybe. That's probably more accurate, since the way Zach is looking at him right now makes Chris feel a little bit like he's some kind of defenseless animal in the crosshairs of a high-powered rifle. In a hot way. 

Fuck. Chris can't think, there's a fleck of dried shaving foam by Zach's ear and Chris can't stop looking at it, can't stop thinking about leaning in and raining kisses from there all the way down Zach's neck. Can't stop thinking about Zach growling in impatience after the first minute or so and pushing Chris back into the dirt by the shoulders, about Zach holding himself over Chris and grinding down on him, about Zach leaning in and whispering a litany of the things he's going to do to Chris in that lofty, superior voice he gets when he's sure he's right.

Zach licks his lips and then slowly, deliberately, raises one eyebrow. Chris's soul lets out a heartcry and caves so completely that Chris is a little embarrassed about it. 

"Zach," Chris says. 

"Chris," Zach says. 

"I was thinking," Chris says, and then, godfucking _damn_ it, his AD appears from out of fucking nowhere. 

"Pine!" she snaps. "What the hell are you doing back here? Get to wardrobe, we need you ready to go in ten." 

She fucking stands there and watches him climb to his feet, too, doesn't leave until he's offering Zach a hand up. Chris almost regrets it when she does go, because he wasn't expecting the effect touch would have on this whole situation, what the warmth of Zach's palm would do to him. He's reminded forcibly of that night on the roof in Berlin as he feels those familiar banjo calluses, except this time he looks right in Zach's eyes, forces himself not to look away.

And hey, hey, Zach's looking back at him. This is a good day after all. 

"I was thinking we should have dinner," Chris says. 

Zach says, "Your place or mine?" 

 

**'cause i wanna take you downtown (april 2014)**

"I can't believe," Chris gasps, pulling his mouth away from Zach's after what feels like an eternity, "that we're skipping the fucking restaurant." 

" _I_ can't believe you thought we were _going_ to the fucking restaurant," Zach says. He grinds his crotch against Chris's, pushing him back against the door that he basically shoved Chris into the minute Chris stepped inside. "I mean, Jesus, why would you say we should meet here if you weren't planning on us fucking immediately?" 

"I made reservations, okay?" Chris says, leaning in to bite sharply at Zach's neck. "And I wanted to pick you up, make it like, you know, a date. Plus it's better to carpool anyway. For. Uh. The environment."

"Are you actually delaying a fuck I've been waiting on for five years -- "

"What, seriously?" 

"To talk about being eco-friendly, Chris, I swear to god," Zach finishes severely, ignoring Chris's open-mouthed gape. "Either go right now and trade in that fucking Porsche for a Prius like a responsible citizen or -- and may I heartily suggest option B -- _immediately shut the fuck up_." 

"Five years," Chris says. It's kind of muffled, because he's saying it against Zach's mouth, but he says it nonetheless. "Why didn't you -- oh, fuck, that's -- hey! I'm asking you a question here!" 

"I didn't tell you because I didn't tell you," Zach snaps. "Don't shit where you eat, right? Or don't shit where you actually want to maintain a friendship, there, happy now? We're not making a thing about it." 

"But," Chris says, and Zach sighs heavily, puts a hand over Chris's mouth, leans away far enough that Chris can see his pointed eyeroll, and then shoves his other hand into Chris's pants.

"I said," Zach says, wrapping his fingers around Chris's dick and jerking it lightly, "that we're not making a thing about it, okay?" 

Chris seriously considers biting Zach's hand, but Zach pulls at his dick again, smoother and less punishing this time, so he nods instead. When Zach doesn't pull his hand away, lifts his eyebrows like he's not sure of Chris's commitment, Chris takes a calculated risk and licks, just once, at Zach's palm. 

Zach grins -- his real grin, the one that's not sharp or calculated or mocking, but based in honest humor -- and drops his hand from Chris's mouth. Then he re-adjusts his grip on Chris's dick and conversationally, like a reward, says, "You're bigger than I thought you'd be." 

Chris… isn't actually sure if that's a compliment or not. It's a little hard to think clearly, his thoughts fraying more and more with every time Zach strokes him, but he pulls it together enough to say, "You thought I'd be small? Fuck you too, man." 

"Later," Zach says, releasing Chris's dick and pressing him against the door again. "And take your praise where you can get it, okay? I would've kicked other guys out for that carpool comment." 

Chris kisses him, then, because he can't help himself -- Zach's mouth is too tempting to be fair and Chris likes him too much, much too much, every nasty withholding inch of him. He'd still like Zach if Zach did kick him out for the carpool comment and so he kisses him like that, arching off the door to press his body as close to Zach's as it can get. Zach grabs him by the hips and pushes down against them, and Chris thinks he might be up on his tiptoes, actually, might be using Chris's body to hold his weight, because the height difference between them is suddenly more pronounced than usual. He's surprised by how hot he finds that, the idea that Zach is bearing down on him, trying to surround him completely. 

After a minute or two, Chris can't help but jerk his hips forward -- he realizes in an embarrassed moment that he's trying to gain enough purchase to find some friction, to rub his aching dick against Zach's leg like he's in fucking heat or something. He decides he doesn't care a minute later, though, when Zach shifts just enough to let him do it, and Chris grinds hard against him, moans a little into Zach's mouth when Zach grips his ass, pulls Chris in tighter. 

"Not naked enough," says Chris, voice thready, when he gets a chance to breathe. 

"You literally wouldn't know game if it walked up and introduced itself to you," says Zach, but steps back and pulls his t-shirt over his head anyway. It leaves his hair mussed, which, over his already swollen mouth, is a dangerously good look.

Chris pulls his own t-shirt off and throws it at Zach's head, says, "I've got game oozing from every pore, for your information."

"No," Zach says. He steps out of his jeans and grabs Chris by the wrist, rubs his thumb over and over the thin skin there. "You just think you do because you get laid all the time, but _that_ ," he runs two fingers on his free hand along the edge of Chris's left pec, grinning when Chris shivers, "is because you've got a really good body, and you're kind of a slut." 

The sharp intake of breath Chris draws on the word _slut_ is… pretty telling, in terms of things he finds really fucking hot and kind of wishes he didn't, but he does he best to rally anyway, says, "Takes one to know one." 

"Please." Zach draws out the word, warm and teasing, just a hint of intent in the way his gaze drops to Chris's crotch. He lets go of Chris's wrist to undo Chris's belt, unzip Chris's jeans, as he says, "You can try, if you want to. To call me one, I mean. I'm not offended by it or anything. I don't even object. I just don't think you really know how to use it, that's all."

Chris has fucked so many people he's forgotten some of them, which is a fact that he feels guilty about more often than he doesn't. He's sent texts so filthy they've all but burned his screen, talked old Berkeley friends through orgasms over the phone just for the sake of hearing them come. He played the wide-eyed ingenue for effect before sucking so many dicks in college that he honestly thought about putting a version of the act on his reel; he's screwed in ways he hadn't honestly believed could really happen when he saw them in porn as a teenager. Chris has slapped a woman's pussy until she came in wet, pulsing bursts that coated his hand every time he made contact -- he's not a blushing fucking virgin, is the point. He knows what the hell he's doing. 

But somehow when he stands there and looks Zach up and down and says it, "Slut," with as much heat behind it as he can muster, Zach's right -- it falls flat. Chris sounds like some kid who's never seen anybody's junk but his own and it's awkward in this way sex hasn't been for him in years. Zach's looking at him the way Zach's always looking at him, evaluative, and Chris doesn't know why Zach does this to him but he is, goddamn it, he _is_ blushing, can feel the heat in his cheeks and his forehead and the back of his neck. 

And then Zach grins like a fucking shark and leans forward, his lips brushing against Chris's ear. " _Slut_ ," he says, and the word rips out of his mouth like it's been trying to escape for years, and Chris is too fucking weak-kneed, just from that, to be embarrassed anymore. 

"You win," says Chris.

"I always win," says Zach, and takes Chris's hand, leads him to the bedroom. 

There's an awkward moment where the dogs try to follow them inside, where Zach tells Chris to make himself comfortable and steps out to… well, Chris doesn't know. Feed them thousand dollar bones with _Stop cock-blocking Daddy_ , written along the rawhide in gold trim or something, probably, or maybe walk them, given how long it takes. Chris strips himself down the rest of the way in the resulting quiet, tosses his underwear over towards Zach's hamper, pulls at his dick a few times to keep himself hard. He spreads out across Zach's duvet, which is eggplant purple, which makes Chris hungry, which reminds Chris that they skipped dinner. He thinks about going back out into the hall, rescuing his cell phone from the pocket of his jeans and calling to cancel that reservation. 

Instead he finds himself considering the fact that he's completely naked on Zach's comforter, a thought that sends white hot little shivers down Chris's spine, because: yeah. Chris is completely naked on Zach's comforter. Chris has gotten far enough into Zach's world that his bare ass, that his precome-sticky dick, are allowed to touch the place where Zach sleeps. 

"Yeaaaaaaah," Chris says to himself, rubbing his cheek against Zach's pillow and then flipping over, putting his hands behind his head, smirking up at the ceiling. "You did it. You are totally having sex with Zach tonight. Eat shit, me in 2009, I got there." 

Then he freezes, waiting for Zach to yell "I can fucking hear you, Chris!" or something equally embarrassing. He only allows himself to relax and go back to smirking when he's sure no shoes are going to drop, and that's what he's doing when Zach finally opens the door. 

Zach is also naked. Chris… stops smirking. 

"You, uh," Chris says, mouth dry, "you're kind of one to talk. About the -- the hot body thing, you know. And the… bigger than expected. Thing. And all of it." 

"Yeah," Zach says, flicking a condom at Chris and then walking over to the bed, climbing up to straddle Chris's hips. "When's the last time you let a guy fuck you, Chris?" 

"Are you," Chris's mouth is so dry that he actually has to stop and swallow before he can continue, which he'd be more worried about if he couldn't see Zach's dick now. He's fully hard, uncut and big enough that Chris can't exactly look away, and Chris fucking saw him twitch a little when Chris’s voice cut out. "Uh, sorry, I just didn't -- like, you want to right this second? Because I was kind of counting on a little foreplay first." 

"Oh, well, get out then," Zach says. Chris's face must fall, because Zach bursts out laughing a second later, puts a hand on Chris's chest, says, "God, _god_ , I'm kidding. You're so ridiculous, like I'd let you go anywhere now that I've -- uh. I mean, I was just asking because I -- uh -- " 

Chris doesn't think he's ever seen Zach blush before, and is equal parts relieved that he's not the only one to do that tonight and oddly charmed by it. Even in this rare moment of visible vulnerability Zach looks severe somehow, like he's angry at himself for showing this much emotion or something, and Chris isn't even entirely certain what he's embarrassed about. It could be whatever he was about to say, but Chris is pretty sure it isn't, is pretty sure that _Like I'd let you go anywhere now_ was more of Zach's hand than Zach meant to show. 

And that's great, actually, because it makes Chris feel a little less like he's dropped all his own cards all over the fucking floor. He reaches up and buries his fingers in Zach's hair, drags him down into a kiss, and Zach goes along with it, lets him. He bites a little, and Chris fights his smile at that for as long as he can; eventually it blooms out over his face, unkissable, and Zach pulls back looking, once again, in total control of himself. 

"I was _asking_ ," Zach says, "because I'm figuring it's probably been awhile, right?" 

"Since I let a guy fuck me?" Chris says. "Uh, yeah, a year or two. Why?" 

Zach bites his lip, which is clearly a calculated move on his part, something he's doing to turn Chris on; it's fucking working. "Because," he says, "if it was that long, you're not ready for what I'm going to do to you when I fuck you." 

"Oh," Chris says, voice a strained rasp at the thought of it. "That's -- that's very sad." 

Zach laughs. "'That's very sad?' Really?" 

"Are you really going to mock me in the sack?" Chris demands. "For being turned on? Seriously? Is that what this is going to be?" 

"Sorry," Zach says, not sounding it. "But, look, you need some like, intensive stretching -- wow, that does it for you? Intensive stretching? That officially makes your gym addiction unhealthy." 

"Zach," Chris says, and hears the whine it in. "Could you get to the point, please?"

"I don't know, could I?" Zach grinds down and grins when Chris's breath catches, eyes dancing as Chris glares up at him. "Oh, fine. I kind of took the liberty of, ah, getting myself ready for tonight, since I don't feel like contenting myself with blowjobs until your delicate virgin asshole can handle me." 

"What the fuck, Zach, my asshole isn't -- " Chris starts, and then chokes on his own tongue when he actually processes what that means. "Wait, you're. You. I'm going to fuck _you_?" 

"No, Chris." Zach leans close, runs his tongue along the same path his fingers took along Chris's pectoral earlier; with his left hand he reaches down under Chris's cock. Chris's eyes roll back into his head a little as Zach rolls his balls gently between his fingers, says, "I'll be the guy with your dick up my ass, sure, and you'll be the guy wearing the condom, but -- and I want this to be very clear -- I am definitely, definitely going to be the guy doing the fucking. You good with that?" 

"Yeah," Chris says.

Zach tightens his grip on Chris's balls, catches his mouth at the edge of Chris's jaw, leaves a couple of stinging, biting kisses there. "I'm not sure I heard that." 

"Yeah, Zach, fuck yeah," Chris says -- groans, really, because he's so easy when it feels this good, would happily let Zach make him come just from this.

But that's not what Zach wants -- Zach wants it complicated and intricate, wants to spread Chris out and lick up the insides of his thighs, wants Chris to suck him for five solid minutes where the only break in his composure is his increasingly ragged breathing. Zach wants to watch Chris roll the condom on with his own dick in his hand, and Zach wants to lower himself onto Chris's cock so painstakingly slowly that Chris thinks he's going to die from the agony of it, of how good it is, will be. Zach makes that face again as he sinks his way down Chris's dick, that one where he's biting his lip, and Chris knows when he sees it that Zach only did it before because he knew he'd do it like this. And the fucking construction of it is so hot -- the idea that Zach does sex three steps ahead like this, sets up little themes within a given lay just because he can -- makes something snap hungrily inside Chris, awakens something he/s never felt before. 

"You're so fucking good for me," Chris says, rocking forward as Zach finally settles all the way down, "everything about you, we should've been doing this five years ago, or ten years or --" 

"Shut up and move, Chris," Zach grinds out, tightening himself around Chris's dick, and Chris closes his eyes, shudders with sensation, does as he's told.

He comes first and at Zach's sharp insistence, to the sound of Zach's hissed: "Come on, come on, come on, come _on_." He understands the frenetic edge to Zach’s voice a second later, when Zach pulls off of him and climbs up across his body, slides his dick into Chris's slack, gasping mouth. Chris sucks him off badly, messily, too shocked and overwhelmed with sensation to do anything but let Zach more or less fuck into him, but it seems to do something for Zach. It must, because he's groaning and coming down Chris's throat after barely half a minute, collapsing backwards across the sheets with a growled, pleased-sounding, " _Fuck_." 

Chris doesn't know how long he lays there, waiting for his heartbeat to relearn a reasonable pace. He listens to the sound of Zach's breath and wonders if he's ever felt this good after sex before; he doesn't think so, honestly. It's almost always good, a giddy sort of release, but he can't remember the last time this warmth was there, blooming under his skin. Maybe it's because he knows that in a few minutes, he and Zach will order takeout and revert to their usual patterns, except with this new thing between them, lighting them both up from the inside out. Maybe he just really likes having sex with Zach; it doesn't matter, really. Chris overanalyzes so much about his life -- when he feels good, it's just for the sake of it. When he feels good, he takes it at face value, because why fucking waste it, honestly. 

"Hey, Zach," he says eventually, "I meant it, you know. We should've been fucking for years, that was great. You're great." 

Chris waits, too flushed with pleasure to even be worried about it, for Zach to deliver some kind of cutting remark. But Zach clears his throat, nudges Chris's thigh with his foot, and says, "Yeah, well. You're not so bad yourself." 

 

 **one day i will find the right words, and they will be simple (spring 2015)**

"This smoothie," Chris says, holding it away from himself and giving it a distrustful look, "is fucking terrible. Like, seriously fucking terrible. I don't know if there's too much coconut or too much kale or if someone pissed in it -- "

"Ew," Zach offers, looking up from his iPad long enough to give Chris a disparaging look. "I'm eating." 

"You're not." 

"I'm thinking about eating," Zach amends. "Or I was, anyway. Now I'm thinking about piss smoothies and defenestrating you, not necessarily in that order. Neither thought is exactly conducive to appetite." 

"I dragged my ass out of bed before the crack of dawn to get you that fucking muffin," Chris warns, "and if you feed it to Noah, you won't be the only one considering defenestration." 

"Don't be ridiculous," Zach says, looking back to his iPad. "Noah can't eat chocolate." 

It's become kind of a thing, this, the two of them spending Saturday mornings sitting on Zach's back porch. Chris isn't sure how, exactly, they got into the habit -- they're not always both in town, for one thing, and for another Chris's back porch is actually nicer (Zach's insistence that the dogs prefer his place on the weekends is frankly insane, but Chris goes along more out of necessity than choice). He should probably fight back against this, the degree to which he spends more time at Zach's place than his own and the fact that Zach is never the one on breakfast duty, but he can't quite bring himself to, somehow. He likes Zach's back porch, the ridiculous hipster artisan wood deck chairs and the view that's only half as good as the one from Chris's, the way Skunk always demonstrates having thrown over his old attachment to Jonathan Groff by curling up next to -- and usually licking -- one of Chris's ankles. 

Chris likes how much Zach likes it, is the truth. How comfortable Zach looks in a pair of sweatpants and nothing else, glaring down at his tablet between sips of coffee that Chris went out and bought him, one hand drifting down absently to pet Noah. The way Zach cuts little glances over to Chris sometimes when he thinks Chris isn't looking and smirks, very slightly, like a satisfied cat. Like Chris is something he finally dragged back to his lair after a long and arduous hunt. 

Distracted by the thought of Zach dragging him back to his lair after a long and arduous hunt, Chris forgets about how bad the smoothie is, takes another sip, and makes a distressed noise. "Fuck. No, wait: _yuck_." 

Zach doesn't even look up from his tablet. "You're an idiot." 

"No, look, you have to try this." 

"The smoothie that tastes like someone pissed in it?" Zach says. "Hard pass." 

"But it's like, an achievement in terrible smoothies," Chris says. He takes another sip for confirmation, wincing around it. "Ugh, yeah. It's the worst. It must be tasted to be believed." 

Zach looks up from his tablet for the sole purpose of screwing his face up into an exaggerated mimic of deep thought. "Wow," he says after a moment, "what a great point, but, you know what, having considered it carefully: no." 

"Come on, just try it." 

"Lunatic," Zach says, "no. Take it back if it's so bad."

"Eh," Chris says, staring down into the cup. "That's a lot of effort, I'm not sure I care that much." He brightens. "Hey, maybe -- "

"The dogs don't want your backwashy, possibly piss-tainted swill," Zach says. "Take it back or shut up about it, but don't poison defenseless animals."

"It's not _poison_ ," Chris says. He takes another sip, contemplatively this time. "Yeah, I really think it's just too much kale. Skunk likes kale, doesn't he?" 

"Are you taking it back or not?" 

"You want me to get you something else, don't you," Chris says, realizing. Zach shifts very slightly in his seat, not quite guiltily -- Chris is pretty sure Zach's never felt guilty in his life, just justified and superior -- but definitely caught. Chris starts to laugh. "Christ almighty, and you call _me_ a lunatic. Hey, did _you_ piss in it? Because look, Zach, I'm not saying it would be a dealbreaker or anything, but that's really crossing a line." 

The morning sunlight's creeping under shadows all across the backyard as Zach blinks, puts his tablet down on the table, and tilts his head at Chris. Zach's full focus is a little uncomfortable, sometimes, in moments like these when Chris isn't sure what he's done to warrant it; Chris swallows, holds his gaze steady through force of will, says, "Hey, what?" 

"It wouldn't be a dealbreaker," Zach says slowly, "if I pissed in your smoothie. Chris. That's… who says things like that? I mean, really, what's wrong with you?" 

"Well, I'm not saying you should try it or anything," Chris says, and then he stops talking, because Zach is climbing in his lap and kissing him. 

Someday, Chris is going to find himself in the position of trying to explain the topography of their relationship to a third party, someone who doesn't know either of them at all -- it's as inevitable as aging, as death or taxes, and Chris has no idea what he'll say. It only barely makes sense to _him_ some of the time, the little dance they do along the thin line between dicking around and genuine hostility, the way Zach is all sharp edges and Chris is all soft tissue and somehow it works anyway, with neither of them sure if it's despite that or because of it. Chris wishes that he could capture these few seconds somehow for posterity, for when the time comes that he has to put it into words for someone else. He wishes English extended far enough to encompass the way Zach is two beloved people: the meanest, most vicious asshole Chris has ever met and _this_ guy, who finds love in a passing comment and can't believe it, who crawls into Chris's lap on a Saturday morning and holds his jaw in place while he kisses him.

But then again, Chris thinks as Zach pulls back to mouth sticky kisses along his jaw, as Chris tightens both hands on Zach's ass because it's there and he can -- then again, maybe it's better that he doesn't know how to say it. Maybe it's better that it's between them, something that's just theirs, something that defies explanation. Zach would probably roll his eyes if Chris got sappy on him anyway. Chris probably wouldn't blame him. 

"I'm not fucking you until I've had breakfast," Zach whispers in Chris's ear, "so don't come back without a croissant," and Chris's good mood bubbles up into laughter, follows him all the way out the door.


End file.
